


We've Been Dancing With The Devil Too Long

by americanknickersxx



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Blowjobs, Bottom Harry, Bottom Louis, First Time, Harry/Xander - Freeform, Kissing, Louis/Briana, M/M, OTRA tour, Top Harry, Top Louis, babygate, larry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-05-18 03:14:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 39,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5895958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/americanknickersxx/pseuds/americanknickersxx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Harry wonders just how many lies Louis can tell before it’s over. Before it’s too much. The place carved out in Harry’s heart for Louis is already too full, already too overflowing with half-truths, burying the love in a way it won’t survive, in a way that it suffocates. Yet the answer to his question, the truth is that Louis can have more. More lies and untruths, more uncomfortable moments and shoveled out bits. Many, many more."</p><p>or</p><p>After the news of Louis' impending fatherhood is announced, Harry relives the last five years and wonders how much more he has to give.</p><p>Featuring flashbacks interwoven with a current timeline, a story about just how far love can go, how it breaks and if it mends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fiction that pays homage to, but is not associated with, One Direction or the parties related.  
> Do not repost, print, distribute or translate this work in any capacity. I do not relinquish my intellectual property or publishing rights. 
> 
> Each chapter exists in three parts: a small vignette, a flashback (written in italics) and a scene set in the contemporary timeline (listed after each three asterisks ***).
> 
> This story makes certain assumptions:  
> 1\. Larry was real, but any established relationship ended during the TMH era. The relationship ended, but the love, connection and brokenness did not.  
> 2\. Louis did date Eleanor. Harry dated several of his more publicized partners, including Kendall Jenner (and, though unmentioned for the most part, Taylor Swift).  
> 3\. Babygate is real and the baby is Louis'.
> 
> The story begins the day after Louis tells the band about Briana and her pregnancy and takes us all the way through the birth of the child. It does its best to stay with the announced and public timeline, but takes certain fictional allowances. It also will make several noted time-jumps. They should be easy to follow.
> 
> Finally, heartfelt mentions of love:  
> -BB, who gave me the courage to pick the pen up again, and a Dark Larry at heart. Thank you for entering this fandom via your look-alike, and for every marathon Larry session when you could've (and wanted to be) doing literally anything else.  
> -Ivory, my real-world editor, who took a chance and a pet project close to my heart and gave her expert skills and ability to this. Thank you for entering this little world for a time.  
> -The beautiful Bardoc1D who has been on the Babygate/Dark Larry journey with me as my confidant, supporter, encourager, and dear, dear friend. xx Thank you, quite simply, for being you.
> 
> Sincere real world love to each of the above, and to all of you who join us on this journey.

 

Harry wonders just how many lies Louis can tell before it’s over. Before it’s too much. The place carved out in Harry’s heart for Louis is already too full, already too overflowing with half-truths, burying the love in a way it won’t survive, in a way that it suffocates. Yet the answer to his question, the truth is that Louis can have more. More lies and untruths, more uncomfortable moments and shoveled out bits. Many, many more.

            In the end, that’s what breaks him. Harry knows he’ll let the lad ruin him. Again and again and again. Harry falls asleep to the sound of his own tears, the sobs creating a staccato that his breath can keep time to.

 

Chapter 1

            _The truth of it is that they met in a bathroom. In this life. Harry knows that in any life he’s ever had, somehow the other lad was in it. He’s comforted by the fact that in some version of themselves, maybe in ancient times, maybe in the future; but in some version, he’d be the one to hurt Louis, to ruin him. It’s what gets him through the times he tries not to dwell on._ _Anyway, they met in the bathroom and it was all hair and wee and dimples and *Oh, that’s new*, and *Oh, this is different*._

_The truth is that he’d seen more beautiful things than Louis. In any good love story, there’s the moment where the man looks at the girl and thinks that there’s never been a more beautiful person in existence. Perhaps that should have been Harry’s first clue. This wasn’t a girl. And Harry had seen things more beautiful than Louis. Louis was lowly, and he was sweaty. His hair was always plastered to his forehead, and when he smiled, Harry could see the wilted bits. He smelled slightly sour, as if the universe was reminding Harry that this was a boy. And he was all boy. Flat stomach and thin arms with scarves and skinny jeans and a sweet voice Harry would come to place anywhere. Despite any reasons or claims to the contrary, Louis William Tomlinson was all boy. And just a bit of a lad._

_Louis bounced on a wavelength that seemed strings above Harry’s own. He balanced an air of trying very hard with the air of a little boy still afraid of everyone and everything. Harry could understand but not compare. Even at sixteen, Harry knew there was nothing to fear. People liked Harry, too much sometimes, and he had a family and people to lean on. He didn’t have to be brave. Louis looked like he had to be brave, to be tough, but he hadn’t quite figured out how. His wit was sharp but not well-tested; and he brought attention to himself like he was trying to protect people that no one else could see. Anyway, they met in a bathroom._

 

***

            After the meeting, Louis follows Harry to his London home. It’s June 2015, and the London temperature is both what Harry is used to and some sort of welcome reprieve. He’s glad to be home for a moment, but, as he checks his reflective mirror, maybe home isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

            They’ve never occupied this space together, not really. They were far over by the time Anne convinced Harry he couldn’t sleep on couches all his life. (She knew what Harry could feel but never place: that his soul had lost its home; that he was wandering trying to find a place for his body without it.) So this was Harry’s house, and as he pulled beyond the ivy covered brick walls, he wished more than anything that Louis had stayed on the other side.

            His house comes with a unique underground passage way from the garage to the house. Harry rarely uses it, feels like he owes the girls waiting beyond the fences just a glimpse of his normal life, him in t-shirts and tanks, with groceries and a Chinese, iced-coffee with shots of caramel creamers. Here though, as he backs into his garage and catches Louis’ eye, he figures he needs it. Louis looks tired. As the garage door closes and Harry gets out of his car, he can’t see Louis as anything but tired. Not sad or upset or somehow anything other than empty and tired and alone. And maybe sad. Maybe not the maybe, Harry supposes. His head touches the steering wheel for just a moment. He breathes through his chest and shook out his hair the way Louis picked up when they were youths, the way Louis used to tease him for and then tease him with. Harry’s hair is too long now, so he shakes it and pushes it and tries not to think about how it’s just another thing that’s different now, another thing that just belongs to him. Harry takes the passage into kitchen and flips the kettle on. He takes his time, changing clothes and debating a shower. He figures he would need another one after Louis left. He takes two paracetamol and comes downstairs to the kettle going. He ignores it, walking out the door to see Louis still sitting in his car, watching the garage door. Harry whistles through his fingers and Louis’ head snaps to the sound. Harry leaves the door open and goes back inside.

            They look at each other for a moment before Harry wordlessly fixes Louis’ tea. Milk, no sugar, stubbornly Yorkshire. Louis is his tea, stubbornly Yorkshire and bound to its customs and ideals, but white-washed, just a bit. Hardened, with a touch of bitterness that can’t be erased, just diluted. And not sweet. Never sweet. Harry fixes Louis’ tea and wonders why the hell his mind is drawing random comparisons and why the hell his mind won’t let him forget how Louis takes his tea. Probably for the same reason he still buys the red and yellow box to begin with.

Harry watches Louis turn his head ‘round the kitchen, looking but not daring to see a house and life not lived. His presence is nowhere visible but in the walls all the same. Harry clears his throat, and Louis looks at him and sees the tea. He takes his cup and finally sits upon a stool near the breakfast bar, and his feet don’t touch the ground. Harry waits for him to begin.

            “It isn’t real,” Louis says. He looks at his nails, picking at the skin, his face looking like he hopes it bleeds. He looks up and searches Harry’s face, as if to say into the quiet, _Are you staying?_ _Are you still here?_

            “It isn’t real, I swear.”

            It’s what he said at the meeting, the kind of meeting that used to require a joint processing session when it was over, five boys in one flat with cheap beer and warm vodka. This time it was just four. They all left separately, Louis following Harry even though he wasn’t invited, even as Liam offered what he could in the absence of the other.

            In the meeting, Louis told them all the basics. He told them he’d already spoke to Simon, to the mother, and he told them all the girl’s name. How he met her, how she’d contacted him through Oli to tell him the news. He didn’t talk about the test, though Niall asked if it, if the baby was his; Louis didn’t talk about what he wanted to do. Louis told them the basics and now, in the kitchen, he told Harry it wasn’t true. Harry looked at Louis and shrugged, turning to fix his long forgotten tea.

            “Yeah.”

            “I swear.”

            “If it’s not, then why are you telling me?” Harry asks.

            “Cause,” Louis says, huffing and flitting his hair in a way that Harry hates and used to love, “it’s gonna be a thing, innit? And you deserve to hear it from me, right.”

            Harry thinks of the blank faces of the others in the meeting, all of them trying not to look at Harry, all wanting to ask if he had known, if he knew before they did; wanting it to be true (that their relationship was somehow still sacred, that it still held the band together), yet knowing that it just couldn’t be. That, for all the effort and circumstances and history, the terrible and glorious and forever and always and home history, that Harry and Louis just didn’t like each other anymore. And isn’t that the most terrible thing about love; that it can come and go in fits and starts and doesn’t adhere to the same rules as liking someone. That everyone knows, that everyone can see that they dislike each other and the lives they’ve created independently for all the right reasons, yet they still find the other one ever present in their hearts. Harry hates it. Hates that the truth is that he hates the bravado washed away in the present situation. Hates the loudness and the stupid shirts and the stupid friends and the talk of football and women and tits and ass and the desire and need to be the biggest thing in the room. And he hates blue eyes and misses glasses; hates a bounce in just the toes and only the thought of drinking whiskey. Hates that despite everything there isn’t a single part of Louis that Harry doesn’t love. And isn’t that just the worst thing.

            Harry looks at Louis, and it’s clear he’s begging for forgiveness he hasn’t earned, that he wouldn’t need if he was telling the truth.

            “Why are you telling me?” Harry asks again.

            “Just told you, didn’t I? Just thought you should hear it from me.”

            “Why the meeting then, if it’s all just a lie?”

            “Had to tell them something, had to tell them how it’s gonna come across. Catch up, Haz.”

            Harry flinches at the nickname.

            “Did you tell Eleanor?” Harry asks, and he isn’t even sure why. He liked Eleanor; he did, and every time he dropped to his knees or bent over a table or flexed or moaned or wept at the good bits, he always felt a twinge of sadness, of guilt. She deserved better than Louis. And boy, did she know it. He liked Eleanor, he did.

            Louis clears his throat and looks down at the floor, bypassing the countertop completely.

            “Yeah.”

            “She was in LA when I found out. Figured I’d see her while she was there.”

            “What’s she say?”

            “Slapped me, didn’t she?” Louis scoffed. “Deserved it, I’m sure.” Louis leaned back in his chair, rocking on two legs, attempting to look out the window at the almost bright London sky. Harry wishes they weren’t in his house.

            “Couldn’t deserve it if it’s not true, right?”

            Louis looks up startles, almost realizing he’d been caught in his earlier lie. And this is the part Harry knows. When Louis doubles down and refuses the truth. Refuses to believe that Harry is smart enough to see through the façade he helped create. Louis always did give himself too much credit.

            “Said it wasn’t true, didn’t I? Why? Don’t believe me?”

            They stare at each other for just a moment. They both know they’ve lost.

            So Harry just gets up. And he leaves.

 

            Harry comes back downstairs later, after a nap, and, not quite a cry, but a moment where he didn’t stop the tears from running as he stood under the lukewarm water. He should’ve washed his hair. Harry’s wearing just his pants, and turns the corner to find Louis still sitting there. His head is down on the counter, and his phone is still in his hand. It’s been hours at this point; the sun has changed positions and dusk is creeping into the house through the half-open shades and the places where Harry forgot to keep out the world. He doesn’t wake him, lets him lie face-down for a bit longer until the kettle’s gone off and he’s ordered curry and naan and the dessert Louis always liked but couldn’t pronounce the name of. He stands in the kitchen and watches Louis sleep, like he belongs there, like it’s his house and their home, and everything isn’t just entirely fucked. It’s easy to pretend with each of his fluttered breaths. Thirty minutes later, the delivery boy rings through the gate. Louis sits up and looks around, finds Harry standing with a cuppa and no emotion on his face. Harry can see him struggling not to look down, to take in his lack of clothes.

            “Get the door,” he says, walking out of the room. “There may be money on the table.”

            “Wha?” Louis says, rubbing his face.

            “The door, Louis – food’s at the door,” Harry calls from the living room. He hears Louis stumbling to his feet as the gate rings through again.

            “How do I – how does it –”

            “It’s – I’ve got it,” Harry says. He stands from the couch and pushes by Louis standing in the foyer, looking lost and confused. He presses the button the wall, allowing the gate to swing open, checking that it’s just a delivery boy and not a fan or a pap, or anyone really. He realizes in that instance that there’s nobody in the world he wants to see at that moment, least of all the one person standing next to him.

            “Pay for the food, Lou,” he says again. He puts his cup in Louis’ hand, leaving him to open the door and talk to the delivery boy. He’s glad it’s a male, glad it’s someone he hopes doesn’t know who they are, doesn’t know how strange and wrong that he and Louis are together, that they were ever anything other than strangers and bandmates and best friends and brothers. That they were anything at all. Harry gets comfortable on the couch and turns on the telly over the sounds of Louis saying thank you and shutting the door.

            Louis enters the living room and places the bag down. He sits on the couch opposite Harry and Harry ignores him as he reaches for the food. He opens the steaming boxes, all of them, and places them on the ottoman in front of him. He makes no gesture for Louis to eat and Louis makes not gesture to reach. Harry wonders why he stayed. They don’t speak, neither watching the television talk about sports and current events, ones that the world already knows.

            Later, as Louis is leaving, he turns back towards Harry, still sitting on the couch.

            “It’s not like we were together or summat,” he says, playing with his car keys.

            “Who?” Harry asks.

            “You, me. Eleanor. I was single, you know. Nothing wrong with it.”

            “Never said there was, mate,” Harry says, stretching.

            “I’m just saying,” Louis starts, staring at the floor, “I didn’t – it…”

            Louis blows air at the ground, ruffles his hair and straightens up. He looks over at Harry who still isn’t looking, just watching as if Louis isn’t even there.

            “Like I said, it weren’t real.”

            Harry finally looks at Louis and lives, for just a moment, in the truth and lie of his defense. He thinks about everything Louis just said. _It’s all true_ , Harry thinks. They aren’t together, haven’t been since they were teens. Yet for every mistake Louis has made over the last three years, he demands absolutions with those words. _We aren’t together_ with every scandal, every drunken grope and every phone call. _We weren’t together_ for every joint and every pill, every present purchased for some other girl, someone other than Harry, other than H. With every hiccup and cut and scratch and bit and cloying attempt to upend Harry’s world. _We aren’t together. We weren’t together. We were never together._

            Louis moves to leave then, but stops at the front door. He looks at the tea cup he placed there while grabbing the food. He didn’t eat. Louis picks up the untouched tea carefully, and takes it into the kitchen. Harry stands up and walks through the back way, sees Louis standing alone at the sink. The cup is next to him. Harry walks and places it in the sink, what Louis never seems to get. There’s an order and things go certainly places, and that is where he needs this to be.

            “You deserve this,” Harry says, standing right behind Louis in a way even he feels is melodramatic. Everything else remains unsaid. _You deserve the pain. You deserve the shame. You deserve the embarrassment and the jokes and the mockery I hope is coming. You deserve that girl. You deserve the stares. You deserve to lose everything you’ve ever loved. You deserve to lose everything you’ve ever earned. You deserve to lose me. You haven’t learned anything. And so you deserve it all. You don’t deserve me. You don’t deserve my forgiveness or absolution or whatever the fuck else you wanted by coming here, by being here the first time. You don’t deserve any of me. You deserve all of this._ None of it has to be said. Louis knows it when Harry walks back up the stairs and never comes down; waiting until it’s almost light again, even though the front door closed long ago.


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

“I trust you,” Louis says, and it’s simple like, easy. They’re in a car somewhere, and it’s Harry’s turn to pick the music, to pick when they stop and start and continue. It isn’t the first time Louis’ ever said it, surely. Not the second or third or even the fourth. Harry can recall dozens of times, countless ones where it’s slipped off Louis’ tongue with his eyes bright and body dancing. Louis trusts Harry with his life. Louis trusts Harry with his career. Louis trusts Harry with his car and his clothes, trusts him to never fuss about his mess, or tell his mum the dirty secrets of his life, of their life together as bludgeoning partners and friends and lovers and bandmates and people. Louis trusts Harry with everything except his heart. Except his mind. Except that life as partners and friends and lovers and more. Always more. Except his entire body, not just the pieces that are difficult to see outside the night. Harry trusts Louis but Louis does not trust Harry. But even that’s a lie. Harry trusts Louis with absolutely all that he is with everything that he is; but he knows Louis will ruin him. He trusts that the outcome is more predictable than the actors.

 

Chapter 2

            _They fell in lust in front of the cameras. At first, Harry was convinced it was all for show. Louis always cheated his life towards the lens, an obvious wink. He was, for all intents and purposes, an_ _areshole;_ _the kid in the home movies who kept pulling focus, kept begging the uncle or other cousin to come back and to notice, to approve. He boasted about his bit parts, how his mum was convinced he would be famous, how he was convinced he would be famous. There was just something about Louis. Yet in the house, he struggled to be seen. He couldn’t be the loudest, didn’t step into an assumed role of leadership. He was lost in so many ways, and in Harry, Louis found a captive audience. He would’ve been a fool not to take advantage of it. He didn’t._

_So they fell into lust. The smiles turned into touches turned into gropes that Harry called accidental. He didn’t like to think about how his first thought in the morning was Louis, or how his largest wish was Louis, but loosely formed._

 

***

            It had been a month, and Harry had done well. He’d avoided Louis, which wasn’t new. The years had taught the two how to dance around each other, ignore one another while seeming as if they were still…in something. Not in love. _Never in love_ , Harry thought. Still, in the month since the meeting and Louis in his home, Harry’d wandered a bit, as far away as he pleased but not so far as to worry his mum. He’d learned his lesson from that. He spent time with Glenne and Jeff and the people and relationships he’d formed, proudly, outside of Louis. (He recognized that the greatest thing he’d ever done was learn to be Harry, though maybe he hadn’t even done that. He also realized that the greatest thing he’d ever done, that maybe he’d ever do, was be a part of HarryandLouis. He doesn’t like to think about the second part at all).

            He also spends time with Xander.

            Xander, is nice. It’s been months, years really if he’s honest, that Harry’s watched X watch him. In the corner of his eye, the shy looks, the timid adoration and the _Brilliant, Hazza_ s or _Nice, H_ s, or the slight yet quick admonishments when Jeff teased a little too hard, bit a little too deep. It was always clear, how Xander felt about Harry; Harry never questioned it. But Xander wasn’t Grimmy, didn’t demand both his attention and affections. He just wanted to exist in the same place as Harry, to feel chosen instead.

            So Harry avoids Louis and the life that resolves/includes him and spends time with Xander. He ignores calls from Cazza and from Lou, answers quick hits and emails from Cara and Will. He ignores Nadine and the insufferable bullshit that surrounds attempting to publically date a person, anyone that isn’t – anyone after a certain period of time. Harry’s always done better in a secret. So he lives and sort of works, and lets himself be charmed by it all. It’s a nice break from being the charming one.

 

            When Xander casually asks if Harry wants to go to dinner on a random Wednesday, Harry recognizes the request is a date. He says yes anyways. The restaurant they go to that Saturday in Brussels is casual in the European way that Harry has come to identify as West Hollywood instead. It’s how he identifies himself, come to think of it. He can wear just jeans and his shirts, neither made for a masculine body; and the starters will cost 30 quid. It’s okay; he has money. So does Xander. In the years that he’d known him, Harry’s never quite understood what exactly X does for a living. He just knows he’s from money like Jeff, but that he believes in creating his own empire. That he believes in hard work and small jokes and sweet moments that Harry’s never experienced before. The thing is that Harry doesn’t care though, and he knows that Xander knows. They are often silently on the same page. The two sit at the restaurant and talk about charity work and the Packers’ chances come fall, and Harry’s upcoming tour schedule. Xander promises to make many of the West Coast shows, and Harry smiles, says he’s looking forward to the company. It doesn’t matter if he means it; it’s worth the smile in Xander’s eyes.

            Harry knows what Xander wants and is willing to give it to him. By accepting this as a date, there will be a thing, a place to go but slowly. They’re already mates, partners by choice and not dwindled down to it. And it doesn’t matter that it means something different to the both of them; it’s that they at least want the same thing, no matter the reasons.

 

            Harry and Xander have been together, somewhat, for a bit when the phone rings in July. They’re back in LA now, and it rings not to interrupt something, but not to say it wasn’t. Jeff always makes fun of how much time Harry spends on his phone, how much it rang. Said he should get different ringtones so people could tell his business calls from his personal ones. “Then we’ll know if you’re really as popular as you think you are,” Jeff said, Glenne rolling her eyes and Xander, always Xander rubbing his back or touching his thigh. When his phone rings this time, Xander looks up and smiles.

            “Hello?” Harry answers, smiling back at Xander. Xander is nice.

            “You need to come in,” the person says. It takes Harry a moment to place the voice. Vic, from their PR team.

            “What?”

            “Something’s happened, and you need to come in. The others are on their way.”

            And Harry knows, but he asks anyways, needs it confirmed.

            “What happened?”

            “It’s Louis.”

            Vic continues to talk, but Harry’s stopped listening. Most of 2015 has been spent cleaning up Tommo’s messes. Most celebrities and musicians have media and PR teams, sure, but he often thinks that Vic, whose entire job seems to center around dragging Louis out of the muck by her nails, deserves a raise or a special reward. They all do. In his short life, Harry has never felt so lived and exhausted as he has this year. And it’s all Louis’ fault. _What else is new?_ From the tiny stories that never come out about drugs, to videos of drunken misheard rants, to flying girls out to locations where Eleanor wasn’t, to Zayn – it all revolves around Louis. Harry know he’s not the only one who is tired of it; for every interaction and night out, Niall grumbles and lets Louis buy his silence and hesitant support in pints and spliffs. Until he doesn’t. Now Niall is just pissed. Paul just left, before it was too hard, before he had to face Louis and Zayn again. And Harry, Harry just sighs and pulls away, protects himself a bit more. It’s inevitable, Louis’ glorious and well-earned crash and burn. But even as it arrives with a nine-month deadline-lifeline, Harry can’t help but feel rushed and bothered. He hangs up with Vic, promising he’s coming, promising he’s on his way.

He thinks about buying Vic flowers as he grabs the keys to his car and looks at Xander, sitting in Harry’s shorts and nothing else. They’d been having a simple day, enjoying what they were. He wants to apologize, but Xander cuts him off before he can speak.

            “It’s fine, H. Promise.”

            “I just feel bad,” he says, checking for his wallet.

            “It’s your job. I’ll be here when you get back. We can think of something for dinner.”

            “He’s not my job,” Harry says.

            “H—”

            “No,” Harry interrupts. “Aren’t you sick of – isn’t everyone sick of, of –”

            “Of having their lives dictated by his dick?” Xander suggests, laughing. He stands from his place on the couch, chucking his phone on the ottoman. Xander crosses to H, grabbing Harry’s sunglasses from the front table and placing them onto Harry’s face. Harry smiles as Xander pushes them back.

            “You have your own issues with him, babe. I don’t ask questions – never will, promise. But it’s still your job. So go. I’ll be here. I’ll probably hop on your laptop and actually get work done seeing that it’s Monday,” Xander laughs. Harry closes his eyes and smiles, feels Xander’s lips upon his own.

            “I’m thinking about that new fusion place Alexa was talking about the last time she was in town. Maybe we can just go to SoHo.”

            “Yeah,” Harry says, clearing his throat. “Sounds good.”

            He exits into the sunshine and doesn’t think about what Xander’s lips feel like or how he’s nothing more than nice. Xander is nice, and that’s enough.

 

            When Harry arrives at the LA offices, they’re a flurry of activity. Everyone is effortlessly cool, and interns squeak by him as office assistants and receptionists act as if they don’t care who Harry is. _They might not actually_ , he thinks, raising his cup to a woman with a smirk on her face. But he’s Anne’s son, so he’ll always be kind, polite.

            He reaches the same conference room they’ve used for years, and the room is still busy, people talking on mobiles and rushing in and out, but there’s a panic here that doesn’t leave the walls. Louis is on one side of the table with Vic and Scott, and he looks miserable. Oli sits in the corner on his phone, chewing his nail while Calvin is artfully stoned. Liam looks nervous for his friend and fearless leader, like he’s waiting for someone to give him instructions and something to do. Niall looks furious. He’d taken the news worse than everyone else, unable to have Liam’s unwavering loyalty or Harry’s battered heart or bruised ego. Niall is Niall, and Niall is Louis’ friend, which meant he could say that he was an idiot, say that he’d ruined his life and ‘God help whatever fucking child has your genes, Tommo’ and call the girl names. Niall’s allowed to be angry. His anger comforts Harry.

            Oli mumbles something from the corner, and Louis and the suits groan.

            “Try her again, damn it!” Louis begs. He looks unkempt and uneasy, and Harry wonders just what he’s walked into. Niall turns as Harry enters the door and calls over to him.

            “Did you hear about this fucking shit, H?”

            Louis looks up at the name, and all at once his face is mortified and heartbroken and pleading and hopeful. He runs his fingers through his hair, and Harry holds his gaze long enough to be polite and then turns back to Niall.

            “What’s going on?” he asks. He crosses the room and sits at Niall’s side. Louis looks at him and stares, but Harry looks at Niall, looks at Vic who looks ever-beleaguered. Flowers, Harry thinks again, and a nice watch.

            “That fucking cunt—”

            “ _Niall_ ,” Vic interrupts.

            “—sold her story to the paps already!”

            “What do—I thought there was a timeline to this,” Harry says.

            “There was,” Scott says from Louis’ elbow, not looking up from his computer. “But she’s blown it all to hell.”

            “ _People, The Sun,_ and _The Daily Mirror_ already have it. They’re calling for comments.”

            Harry thinks about timelines, counts months in his head.

            “It’s too soon, isn’t it? You don’t tell people—”

            “Of course it’s too bloody soon, Haz.” It’s the first thing Louis’ said to Harry since entering and it’s easy to read the panic. Harry wonders if it’s for the baby or for himself.

            “She’s not on anything anymore,” Calvin says blearily. He takes Harry out of his thoughts. They’ve never quite liked each other, Calvin and Harry, and it’s evident by how he addresses everyone in the room but Harry.

            “We took down her presence fifteen seconds after that first meeting,” Scott says. “Give us some credit, boys.”

            “Shouldn’t have to,” Niall says.

            “Niall—” says Liam.

            “No, don’t interrupt me. I’m in this band too, I’ve got a say.”

            “This isn’t about the band, Ni,” Liam says.

            “Then what’m doing here?”

            Niall stands, and Louis does too.

            “This is your fucking mess, boyo. Right one at that.”

            “Yeah, well, you’ve made that quite clear, haven’t you, Niall?” says Louis, from behind the long dark table full of wrappers and artfully designed coffee cup, half full, half empty.

            “Can’t make it clear enough,” spits the Irish, and it’s the same argument they’ve been having for a month now, one that doesn’t seem to ever really end. Niall is Niall.

            Louis opens his mouth and Niall turns then to Vic, but both are distracted by the quiet rust of Oli’s voice from the corner.

            “Hiya, Ash” Oli says from the corner, and suddenly, everything shifts. People stop, and Oli fumbles with the phone, switching from his ear to speakerphone and then back again.

            “Give me the phone,” Louis cries, bumbling towards the ginger haired boy. Oli shrinks back, listens to the other end of the conversation.

            “Yeah, Ash – well we’re – where is she? But we were there earl—yeah, I guess it’s kind of big. Could’ve—yeah…”

            “Give me the fucking phone!” Louis tries again, grabbing it from Oli’s hands.

            “Ashley, love, where is she?” he begins.

            “No, it’s – I’m not angry, I just—no, I know that – I’m not gonna ye—just let me fucking talk to her!” Louis keeps trying but everyone can see the blinking light; she’s hung up.

            “Jesus fucking Christ” Louis yells. He hurls Oli’s phone across the room and slides down the wall. Harry wishes he didn’t jump when the phone cracked against the wall.

            Oli runs to his phone and bumps into Liam who runs to Louis.

            “Come on, mate, can’t lose you now. Let’s just figure this out, yeah?”

            “There’s no use doing whatever it is you’re doing,” Niall says, and Harry notices he’s still standing. “You’re not gonna stop her, and you’re not gonna stop the press. So what’re we doing here?”

            Harry pulls at Niall’s shirt, and he looks down. He sighs and sits back down and Louis puts his head in his hands and sighs. Harry can feel it in his bones.

            “It’s too early.”

            “Right,” Vic says. “Niall’s right. This isn’t about stopping her. There’s not enough money in the world to stop this from running. It’ll hit tomorrow; we’ve got that.”

            “Do I, do I—” Louis begins, babbling and not making the sentence work.

            “Not yet. We’re not gonna say anything.”

            “What’dcha mean ‘we’?” Niall murmurs.

            “We” Liam repeats. “Come on, lads.”

            “You’re all on a press freeze until we see the way this is going to play out.”

            “What about the cameras?” Liam asks and Harry remembers that they’re still filming the behind-the-scene featurettes for Honda. The things they do for money, he thinks. The things they’ll do for Louis.

            “Don’t be stupid, Liam” Scott says and everyone turns to him, “You’ve been at this for five years. Surely you can fake a smile for a camera.” Liam puffs slightly, and Harry feels bad for his friend. The years haven’t been kind to Liam’s mind and reputation. He’s taken words at face-value and situations without context. He’s done whatever Louis and Zayn and then Louis again have told him, and he’s listened. Liam’s learned. But for all the time, so much time, trying to be everyone’s friend, he both lost himself and found himself along the way. He’s always been simple, but more and more Harry thinks he’s reached his peak. Liam needs a new leader.

            “I can’t” Louis says. Harry looks at the broken boy on the floor, in the safest place for him and his fears.

            “You will,” Vic says.

            “Well I won’t,” Niall says, standing again. “This is none of mine, so best leave me out of it.”

            “Niall—” Harry starts, though he’s not sure what he’s going to say.

            “Aren’t you tired of cleaning up his messes too?” Niall says, and that smarts. Harry winces slightly; he himself has been Louis’ mess, had to be cleaned out of gutters and into people’s homes and beds. And he knows Niall didn’t mean it that way, but still. It smarts. Niall can read it on his face and sighs, scrubs his hand over his face.

            “You wanna go get dinner?” he asks Harry and Harry shakes his hand.

            “I left Xander at the house – we’ve plans later.”

            The room shifts from unease to unease. Calvin snorts, and Louis looks up wildly. Scott rolls his eyes, and Vic sighs, and Harry realizes everyone is looking at him. He’s not another crisis to be handled.

            “Again?” Scott asks.

            “What’s that mean, ‘again’?”

            “You know what it mea-”

            “We’re friends.”

            “Are you?” he says.

            “Does it matter?” Harry replies, standing with Niall. “I’ll walk out with you,” he says.

            “We’re not done,” Vic says.

            “Press ban. Keep our traps shut. Everyone loves Louis. Got it. Anything else?” Niall says.

            “Nice, Ni” Liam says.

            “Fuck off.”

            “Gentlemen-”

            “We won’t say anything,” Harry interrupts, more force in his voice than is required. “We won’t go anywhere. Locked down until the plane takes off. Someone’ll send us our day-sheets tomorrow?”

            “Yes, but-”

            “No ‘buts.’ We’ve got it. We can-”

            “We’re done when I—”

            “Let ‘em go,” Louis says from the floor. He stands up shakily, breathing deep. He rolls his shoulders and puts his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. “I need a smoke,” he announces, and he leaves before anyone else can talk. Liam and Oli scramble after him, Calvin looks up from his mobile and patting his pockets. He leaves, and it’s just Niall and Harry and the suits.

            “You’re gonna have to get used to this,” Vic says when the door closes again.

            “It’s not me kid,” Niall says.

            “But it’s your band.”

            “For how much longer?” he says, leaving too. Harry follows him with his head down.

 

 

            The fourteenth arrives, and the articles hit. Xander takes Harry’s phone, and the two stay in bed for most of the day until Niall shows up, and the three get high by the pool. And Niall is funny and Xander is sweet, and Harry is grateful, really he is, for both of them. He’s grateful for his life and what he has and the fans who don’t believe it and the ones who do. He shares a passing moment for the Larries, the staunch who’ve looked too close and seen too much, whose hearts are both broken and stoic. _They think too much of us_ , Harry thinks, as Niall passes him the joint, and Xander swims up to him, uses his legs as armrests.

            “You staying here tonight?” Harry asks Niall.

            “Nah, Camila’s in town, in-she? Might as well” Niall says, shrugging, and Xander passes his hand over the spot on Harry’s skin where the words used to be.

            “What time do we leave in the morning?” Xander asks.

            “Dunno; the sheet’s come in yet? Haven’t looked at me phone since this morning.”

            “I don’t even know where mine is.”

            “It’s upstairs, babe,” Xander says, and it’s Niall who looks up at the name. “You want me to go get it?”

            “Nah, it’s fine. We’re going tomorrow. They’ll send a car and we’ll get in it.”

            Xander smiles small and gestures towards the joint still in Harry’s hand. Harry bends down and prepares to shotgun. He smiles into it and forgets anything but the slight slips of Xander’s lips and the smoke in his mouth and lungs. Niall coughs loudly.

            “Alright mates, I’m off,” Niall announces. He takes his feet out the pool and dries them on an errant towel that’s been out there longer than Harry cares to admit. The two wave him off as he wanders through the house and out the door. The joint cashed, Harry slips into the water and Xander slips his hand into his shorts, and Harry allows himself to be distracted.

 

            The concert is choppy at best. They sing the songs, and they stick to the script. The only time Harry sees Louis before the huddle is when they’re all summoned, all told not to read signs, not to interact with the crowd at all.

            “Don’t mention the situation,” Vic says, and she’s stern and pleading all at once. “Don’t engage with those who seem hostile or who have something to say. Find a bab—find a kid, a young one, for the birthday song. In and out, boys.”

            The cameras don’t catch the meeting. They don’t catch Louis’ panic attack, the one Harry assumes is big by the flurry. They don’t catch Liam and Oli and even Stan by phone calming the lad down, plying him with beer and a joint and a girl for a good time. They don’t see Lottie slip into his dressing room and curl up in his lap. They don’t see the whispers and the forced laughs and the alcohol that flows just this side of normal. They blur out Xander in the background in the dining space, turn off when he gives Harry a kiss where anybody can see, where people do see. The cameras catch everything they need.

            Niall’s anger carries over to the stage, and he struggles to laugh. Liam, beautiful Liam, keeps them all afloat. He scans quickly and hits his notes, forces conversation and remembers to talk, speaks for Louis who can’t find the words, who was told not to have any that night. The four of them are professionals, and it hits Harry in the middle of “Don’t Forget Where You Belong” that they can do this in their sleep. They don’t need the hurried meetings and worried glances. They are a unit now, have been since March; they won’t break ranks. They just won’t be happy.

 

            It’s before the encore, and they’ve all changed clothes this time. And Harry’s standing in a grey top that’s already damp, looks at Louis in his chopped tank. He’s never understood why Louis likes those cut off tees. They make him look chavvy and fragile and breakable and reckless at the same time. Like he’s watched a movie and decided to live his life like a Greaser. Once, Harry called him Ponyboy, but Louis stared at him confused, getting quietly angry for not understanding but in a way that only Harry could tell. He calls him nothing tonight. He struggled enough on his own, without having to interact or pretend. He knows he’ll beat himself up later for every missed note, for every moment he couldn’t sing. Niall already shoved him and told him to get it together, Lou already given him her patented sympathetic cluck. He hasn’t seen Xander yet.

            Harry’s putting his hair up when Louis touches his elbow. Snatches at it but seems to think better of it. He places both hands on his microphone, the blue noticeable even in the dark.

            “I miss you,” Louis whispers into the loudness. “I hate that I miss you.”

            And Dan starts strumming the guitar, and Niall pushes pass them to take his leave, to walk back onto their home turf, the only place they all fit anymore. (And if Harry’s honest, not even there anymore.)

            Louis looks through his lashes, like he’s too brave not to look but too scared to see past his shoes. The words linger in the air, and Niall’s already singing now. _I figured it out_. And suddenly, Harry hates him again, hates him as much as he did when Louis told his first lie and then his second; hates him as though he could never love him, as if he never did. Louis misses him. Even in the dark and the fierce shame written clearly across his face, Harry knows that Louis isn’t real. He means his words, but they stop at the edge of his tongue, before they reach Harry and penetrate his heart. Again. Louis misses Harry and hates that he does, and Harry hates Louis and misses what’s left of whatever they are. They stare for just a moment and then Harry is gone, tries not to notice that Louis misses almost all of the song. Just another thing to miss.


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

It is difficult to be the only one who knows that somebody loves you, that you are in love. Despite what the internet and the less-than-harshest critics say, Louis never looks at Harry with hearts in his eyes. Louis never looks at Harry like he loves him. Not in public. In public, Louis wears his desperation in an entirely different way. It’s his necessity to be known. Harry sometimes confuses the two, the way Louis seems so fine in one life, yet is just existing in the other. When Harry sits down to think of it, he isn’t sure what is real, if the rutting off and secrets about fathers and sisters and girlfriends and mothers on shared pedestals is the truth, or if the almost kissing and tickle-fights and silly nicknames is. Harry isn’t sure at all.

 

Chapter 3

 

_The first time, the real one, is an accident. The boys are all tipsy though pretending not to be. The house is quiet, eliminations and parties over, the feeling of *we’ve made it* and *just one more week* settled into everyone’s bones. Niall and Zayn are drunkenly asleep; even Liam, who had only taken nips from various bottles when he thought no one was watching, is passed out, wrapped like a mummy in his sheets. Louis is still bouncing, still awake from the madness of the show and from Hannah’s visit. He’d pulled that night and so had Harry, both keenly aware of the difference in their situations. Louis, with his hand buried up his girlfriend’s skirt, Harry with his hands on the hips of some slender girl in a quiet, unassuming corner. The smell of sex stayed on them, even as Harry suggested a slow walk around the house. Louis agreed._

_They wander around a bit, Louis babbling and Harry listening. Louis was describing the stars, or something like them; Harry was more attuned to the slight pull of his mouth, how the words tumbled out like something was pushing them through his thin, cottoned lips. In reality, Louis was talking about Niall’s smells and his hatred of Liam and how Aiden was ace, how sad he was to see him go. In reality, he was saying everything Harry wanted to hear because Louis was saying it. So they wandered, and Louis rambled, and Harry listened._

_Eventually, they found themselves in a stairwell because of course they did. They find themselves in a stairwell, and Harry tugs Louis’ arm and the other boy sighs, rolling his eyes and plopping down next to H. He snuggles in close, letting the arm Harry is still holding drape along Harry’s shoulders and pull him in close. And it’s natural how Harry doesn’t let go of Louis’ arm, reaching to entangle their fingers. Harry kisses his hand, tongue darting out slightly. Like the proud teenage boy he is, Louis hasn’t washed his hands from earlier. Harry is aware, even under the smell of Hannah’s sex, that he knows Louis’ scent, could pick it out of a crowd. It’s the same way years later he’d know his heartbeat, his hands and taste and ability to lie with almost a straight face. He knows his scent and as surely as he believes he understands what’s about to happen, he knows that Louis wants it more. Louis closes his eyes and presses his lips to Harry’s forehead and doesn’t pull away, even as Harry does. Harry looks up, green eyes open and earnest, willing to give Louis whatever he wants, whatever he goes for. The two rest quietly for a moment, heartbeats loud and out of sync._

_Then Louis moves. Louis moves, and Louis kisses him properly, softly with time and lips and no tongue and no hope. It’s Harry’s first kiss from a boy, the first that matters. And it feels like Louis is taking something from him, stealing what he thought he was willing, but somehow not quite ready, to give._

_The kiss is quiet, and the kiss is not deep, and when the kiss over, Louis straightens up and grabs Harry’s hand and continues to babble about the show, about Hannah and his father and footie and anything but his thin cool lips against Harry’s own._

_Louis kisses him three more times before they return to the room: once towards the back lot, another in the bathroom (a full snog where Louis pulls Harry’s hair and Harry’s baby paws grope Louis’ bum. They both moaned and were startled for it), and once there, then, right in front of the bedroom door. It was softer than the first, but even less sure. Harry opened the door and slid through it, taking time to carefully fold his clothes and place them in a pile on the floor._

_It isn’t a question that Louis will join him. He doesn’t ask, Louis doesn’t need to assume. They just curl up like they always do. Harry listens for breath sounds but all he can hear in his own heartbeat, echoed in Louis’. Louis doesn’t kiss him, and Harry feels no sense of regret or urgency. The moments allowed to just rest here, again. And then Louis touches Harry’s dick like he’s collecting a promise. (Which, Harry supposes, he kind of is)._

_Harry is unsure, but Louis is brave and Louis is kind, and if the papers and the internet are to be believed, Louis is also desperately in love with him. Louis holds his hand against Harry’s crotch, and when Harry doesn’t move, doesn’t change his breathing, Louis begins to move._

_Louis ruts up against Harry’s outer thigh and moans quietly, like he both can’t help it and like he knows he’s supposed to. He takes his hand from Harry’s crotch and puts it at the hollow of his neck, and Harry wonders if Louis can then feel him swallow every grind, movement, moment, breath. His Adam’s apple dances to the beat of Louis’ hips. Louis moves again and again, and Harry is frozen, in what he can feel and how he feels it and how he feels._

_The other boys are asleep, or so Harry hopes. In truth, it wouldn’t matter if all the boys were awake; if the lights were on and Niall and Liam and Zayn were staring at the two. It’s clear that Louis doesn’t care, and he pushes up again, this time grazing Harry’s crotch with his other hand. His breath hitches, and he tries to see Louis’ eyes, to see if this is on purpose, if he is allowed to get pleasure too. Harry doesn’t care really, as long as he gets to see the look in Louis’ unfocused and hazy eyes. He wants to think he did that._

_“Lou,” he whispers, afraid to move. Louis grunts in response, pushes his head between Harry’s neck and shoulder. He ruts a tiny circle and makes a noise to match._

_“Lou, do you—” The question get lodged in his throat and Harry doesn’t know when he started breathing so hard. He is motionless on the bed, his right arm pinned under Louis’ weight, the left by his side. Louis stops for a minute, and the only sound is the traffic far away mixed with their uneasy drags of breaths._

_And then Louis moves. He climbs on top of Harry and takes his time lining up their crotches. Harry is still in boxers and Louis in joggers, and just for a fleeting second, he wonders if they will do this again, if they’ll do it without clothes and with mouths and with hands and condoms and lube and then without and then with feelings and with or without passion. Harry feels his crush growing with the weight of Tommo’s body on his. He pulls his arms into his chest and looks up at Louis who is staring down in wonder. He asks again, “Do you, do you—” and Louis crashes down and Harry feels the nod against his cheek. He pulls his arms out and touches the boy, making him whimper. He traces up and down his sides and kisses the top of his shoulder. He grabs his ass, and Louis pushes back and squirms, and still Harry can feel it in his dick. He touches and touches until Louis pulls up again. He gets back on his hands and stares down at Harry. And then he grinds. He grinds, and Harry shouts out, and Niall turns and bristles in his sleep. They don’t stop. Louis keeps grinding and rutting, and Harry holds him at the sides. He can’t figure out how to react, continues to let Louis take what he wants because at least he gets something in return. This time._

_“Close,” he whispers and Louis speeds up, gets dirtier and filthier, rutting and moaning into Harry’s ear. And when Harry comes, he holds his mouth hot and open against Louis’ throat, bites a bit, makes a mark he’ll have to attribute to Hannah. Still, he doesn’t stop until his crotch is soaked and his pants a bit ruined. Louis looks down and is triumphant. He props his body up with one hand, the other touches himself through the joggers and comes. Louis collapses on top of Harry, and the wetness permeates. Harry instantly wraps his arms around Louis’ back, holding him in place like an anchor. He seeks out his eyes again. He wants to know *Was it what you wanted?* and *Why me?* and *Do you want me again?*. Louis lays there silently for so long Harry thinks he is asleep; then, when he closes his own eyes, Louis moves. He gets up and pushes out of Harry’s embrace, stripping out of his bottoms and tossing them onto Harry’s bed. He scrambles up into his bunk, dick limp and in Harry’s line of sight. Harry doesn’t sleep._

 

***

The stories continued to come out, how she’d tricked him, how Alberto and Preston and even Louis’ boys traded handjobs for handshakes, sex for selfies and the chance just to meet the man, to see his drunken face and hazy eyes. Harry already knows all of this. It isn’t even exhausting anymore. With every story and confirmation or blind item, he sees the walls around them going up and up and up until they built a fortress around them, around Louis. And Harry is almost angry, almost bitter to be on the inside of it all. _This isn’t fair_! he wants to cry, _I’m not with him! I don’t know them anymore!_ But Harry is learning to be fine.

 

            They have more meetings. And though Louis tries to fight it, they all know this is the end. Louis manages to argue them all into a break, a year or something longer. He seems convinced that he could do it all, but Harry knows that Louis just doesn’t know better. Never did. But he is still loud and still seemingly in control, and so when he talks, the rest pretend to listen. Their timeline for the year is pushed forward: singles in July, album out in November, no tours, less promo. Everything is sorted so that by the time Louis turned 24, his time with One Direction will be over. They’ll send him over the edge with a heartfelt goodbye, into fatherhood and out of the spotlight for a while. They choose a single and then another. Their team outlines some charity events and good exposure, but Harry tunes out each time they begin to discuss what he knows to just be Louis’ damage control. Vic and Scott and the others try, they do. If Harry squints and forgets what he knows, how it all operates, he could try to think about believing it is for all of them; that the meetings and the balls and the canceled footie games and no-partying rules were for him too. But he does know, and he doesn’t try to forget, not anymore.  It isn’t his. It never could be. It will not be. He will be fine.

            So Harry tunes them out. He attends the meetings in hotel rooms around the States, and he signs his name and he smiles and he shakes hands. He calls Grimmy and plays with Lux. He spends days with Lou’s hands in his overgrown curls. He spends his nights in the literal closet, with joints and a bucket of exotic beers he leaves for the bottles of expensive booze. He phones Xander and lets the boy talk about the present and the future like they are one in the same. They flirt and laugh and even try Skype sex when Harry is horny and Xander canceled his trip to some Eastern city. They never quite speak of the past or the path they aren’t quite on together. Xander is nice.

            And Harry is fine. He pushes through and pushes on. In the sober moments, in the lucid ones, Harry fully accepts that everything is different now. And that this is happy now. And this is enough. And that he is fine. Harry isn’t in love with Louis. He doesn’t have to be. Harry isn’t in love with Louis. He functions. Harry isn’t in love with Louis. He isn’t.

            Harry breathes deep with every water fight and water spout and carries on. Each night, a new city, a new home-base, a new everything. He speaks nothing of fathers on stage, nothing of men and babies or banter at all. He thinks the crowds know why, but they are surprisingly kind. He makes it up with flags and flappy wrists. He sings the songs and then he doesn’t. The boys, Niall and Liam and sometimes the other one, cover for him, come to expect it. He wonders how much goes unnoticed, if everyone can see his own wincing, his inability to sing certain songs, certain moments. He thinks it’s clear, written on the towering monitors and the tiny camera flashes. Heartache on the big screen.

            Except, it’s not heartache. It isn’t heartbreak either. It isn’t anything because he is fine. He convinces himself every night and stops worrying about the fact that he’s let the phone calls and playdates fade. He lets his hair and his apathy for Xander grow in the same manner and breadth and measure. Because he is fine. Harry is fine.


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

If Harry’s honest with himself, he doesn’t actually want to come out. Ever. At all. There’s nothing to come out to or for. He knows what he likes and over the years, he has grown comfortable in a way that Louis never could. Harry is Harry, and he works differently than Louis. He doesn’t understand how Louis works. Not anymore. And he doesn’t blame Doncaster. He doesn’t blame Doncaster and the people in it and from it; he doesn’t blame management or Louis’ overflowing and ever present fears and insecurities or issues with the men in his life. Harry doesn’t blame anyone but Louis for not being able to understand who he’s turned into. He supposes he doesn’t need to understand Louis as long as the lad is happy. At the very base of it, Harry just wants Louis to be happy, but that sounds silly even to him. Harry wants to be sixteen again, to whisper secrets instead of fighting with a boy he’d once know. He wants to be twenty one and a grown-up, in every moment and time. He wants to be together and apart and whatever can get the other boy through. So really, he just wants Louis to be happy. He might want the same for himself one day.

 

Chapter 4

 

_Harry learned early on that everyone fell a little bit in love with Louis. He’d never thought about it before, and watching the boy both prance and stomp round madly, he realized he needed no explanations for his feelings for Louis. He had a crush. He liked having a crush. A crush is a tiny thing that can be carried around in a pocket and to be proud of, something to be whispered of in the dark. Harry was proud to like Louis because everyone else did. He never mentioned the tiny touches, the small gestures and looks he thought no one could see until they could, until Gemma called him one day not knowing what to say, not knowing what was bad or good._

_“Doesn’t he have a girlfriend?” she asked from her room at_ _uni._ _Harry sat outside the house, watching a kick-about become a full five-a-side with Louis as the de facto leader. There always seemed to music in the air at the X-Factor house; in the rhythm of the balls and the rattles of the fences, Harry heard a melody. There were no people waiting to call their names now, just curious onlookers walking by, trying to catch a glimpse of the shouting and laughing and dancing people. Harry watched the scene unfold, forgetting Gemma’s question, forgetting she’s even on Skype until she’s disconnected and rings him back on his mobile._

_“Sorry,” he said quickly, “Sorry, I was- there’s something- I’m sorry.”_

_“Haz,” she said carefully, like Harry was spun glass, “Are you okay, chick?” It’s a special nickname that only Gemma and his mother call him. It’s said without reverence, yet full of love. There’s concern there, of course there is, but Harry chose to focus on the love._

_“I’m good, Iced Gem. It’s aces here, swear.”_

_“And Louis?”_

_“What about him?” Harry said as he watched Louis run around the makeshift pitch, singing songs his voice would never be heard on._

_“H…tell me you’re being careful, at least.”_

_“Gem! I’m not *sleeping* with him for Chrissakes!” he hissed into the phone, sure everyone heard her from miles and miles away._

_The truth is they weren’t. The times Louis snuck into his bunk, or dragged him into the toilets, it didn’t feel like sex. Louis still emitted this…it was just between two mates, yeah. And:_

_“Louis has a girlfriend, Gemma.”_

_“I asked you that before.”_

_“What?”_

_“If he had a girlfriend.”_

_“Oh. Well he does. And she’s really lovely. He seems to like her a lot.”_

_Harry wasn’t quite sure if that’s true. Yes, Hannah was a lovely girl. But she seemed like an extra decoration to Louis, the bit of flounce that fits enough that it’s worn and showcased, but not without potential regret. Gemma took the answer though, and moved on, speaking about uni and their mother’s new obsession with making t-shirts. Harry laughed in all the right places and asked all the right questions, trying not to focus on his crush running around, shirt off and jumping on the backs of the lucky coordinated people in the five-a-side._

 

***

They bump into each other, literally. Harry’s walking down the hall with his face in his phone, which his mum always tells him that he shouldn’t do because he doesn’t pay enough attention. Anne was right, of course, and he feels his boot-clad feet hit soft sandals and hears a “oh” before he realizes what he’s done. Harry’s reflexes kick in, and he steadies the blonde before she can stumble into the wall. He doesn’t notice who she is at first, more concerned about making sure the person is stable more than who it is. Once he sees, he takes a step back.

            “Jesus, sorry,” he says, looking down and around for his mobile.

            “It’s okay,” the blonde replies, smiling tentatively. It’s clear she knows who he is, but maybe not what he means to her and the life she’s attempting to carve out of tabloids and hidden messages.

            “Briana?” she says, sticking her hand out. Her voice lilts enough at the end that everything she says sounds like a question, like she’s not as sure of herself as she pretends to be.

            “Harry, it’s nice to meet you,” he says, taking her hand and smiling kindly. He is thoroughly Anne’s child.

            The two stand there for a moment, not sure of what to say. Harry had known, technically, that she was coming. He’d sat in the meetings and half-listened to the damage control. He’d listen to Niall’s rants about how Louis was dating her now, Liam’s commendations about how good Louis was for choosing to be with her. She was scheduled to be in town for a couple of days, seeing the One Direction sights, and showing up to at least two shows. He’d known she’d be there, that they’d meet, that he’d need to be polite and kind. Yet now, with her right in front of him, he realizes that she is just a girl. A silly and foolish girl, one who’s taken the future he’s promises himself he doesn’t want anymore because he is fine. Still, she is just a girl.

            “Get in okay?” he asks, leaning against the wall. It puts distance in between their bodies, more than is polite, but he’s trying.

            “Yeah, I guess? The time-change is crazy!”

            “You get used to it.”

            “Bet I should,” she says. And it’s clear she doesn’t pick her words well, and it’s clear she doesn’t know what she’s said, but it cooks Harry. _Bet I should_ meaning _I’ll be here a while_ meaning _I’ll be here forever_ meaning _You remember when you were me, don’t you?_ and _You were never me_ meaning _You never will be again_. She still has a smile on her face, bright enough as she is good enough. Just good. Just enough. Harry watches for a second as she look just beneath his collarbones, as she brushes a stray hair back. Harry forgets to respond, forgets he’s supposed to continue the conversation. He stands and stares and holds her in wanting, and she begins to wilt a bit.

            “Um…okay then? I guess I should go?” she says, sidestepping him.

            “Were you trying to find something?”

            “Um, Louis said there’s like a cafeteria or something? Somewhere I can get, like, a snack or some chips or something? I’m craving like a salad, but then Oli said they might not have those today or something?”

            “Oli said?” Harry asks, feigning interest.

            “Yeah, Oli Wright? Like, Louis’ friend? Well, my friend too, I guess? Well, I, like, met him through my cousin and stuff. You know, Ashley?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Yeah, so like, Oli said they might not have salad but that he’d ordered sushi?”

            “Can you eat sushi when you’re…?”

            “I can’t remember,” she says, blowing air. It makes the strands around her face flutter.

            “You should probably remember a thing like that.”

            The girl laughs uneasily, as if she can’t tell if he’s being serious or not. He can’t tell either. She goes to speak again, but Harry cuts her off. He stands up from the wall and points down the hall with a crooked finger.

            “Sarah’s is that way. She usually has some salad or light pasta. I’m sure you’ll get what you want. It was nice meeting you,” Harry says. He goes back the way he came from instead of in search of food.

 

He is only in his dressing room for a few minutes before Louis storms in. If Harry had thought about it, he should’ve expected him.

            “What’d you do?” Louis says, crossing to Harry and standing over him. He swells the way he does when he wants to look bigger, to scare whoever he’s speaking to. It used to work on Harry. Now, he just sighs a bit and puts the lid on his computer down.

            “What are you talking about, Lou?”

            “She’s all—she’s crying and shit. Said you were a right bastard to her.”

            “We talked for all of thirty seconds, mate. Barely said a sentence or two to her.”

            “Then why’s she all fucked?” Louis says, pushing into Harry’s chest. Harry sinks further into the couch he’s on sitting on for a moment, and then remembers that he’s bigger than Louis now, larger. It still startles him from time to time, and he forgets about the size difference when he’s underneath him in any way. He remembers now, placing his computer on the couch. Harry stands up and moves into Louis’s space, forcing Louis backwards, forcing him to look straight up, forcing him to see. The answered expression of unease on the lad’s face seems natural after the fact. Not forced at all.

            “I didn’t do anything, alright?” Harry says with an even tone.

            “Well no, it’s not alright, issit, you fucking prick? She’s in me room crying her little eyes out and me mum is about three seconds from coming in here and telling you the what-for,” Louis huffs.

            “Fine by me. Send her my best.”

            “Fuck you, Harry!” Louis shouts, and he pushes into Harry’s chest again. This time, Harry reacts, grabs Louis’ arms and prevents him from being able to push him again. He straightens up to realize he was closer to Louis than he ever intended. A step or two in the right direction, and he’d be in _his_ space, in the place he’d occupied for years, his home. Harry steps back and moves around the small coffee table. They’ve danced this dance and sung this song. The tune is restless, and Harry is sick of hearing it. Outside the dim room, he can hear the chatter of voices, people doing their jobs and enjoying the company of others. In here, the two young men size each other up like it’s the first time. Like they don’t know every detail, every reaction, every beat and hum and stretch and moan and promise and heartbreak written into the other one. Harry clears his throat.

            “Why are you in here, Louis?” he asks. Louis startles as if he’d forgotten that Harry could speak, but it’s only been a moment or two of silence between them. They don’t count the years.

            “Why’re you here?” Harry asks again, and Louis breathes and pulls his shoulders back.

            “Because Bri—because she’s crying, alright?”

            “But why did you come here?”

            “It’s your fault.”

            “You know better than that,” Harry says.

            This fight isn’t about the girl. It’s not about the girl just like the fights from their flat were never about coming out or whatever Louis wanted their fights to be about. They fight because they love each other, on some level, and it’s awful and they both hate it. Harry hates it. He thinks he’s made it further along, but each time he’s confronted with the truth, with Louis and any of his emotions, he realizes he’s not as far away as he’d like to be. He looks at the lad’s face and has a passing moment for Xander, sitting at home in LA, barely starting his day and maybe hoping he’d wake up to Harry’s voice in his ear. Instead, Harry is right where he always is.

            “What could you possibly want from me?” Harry asks, quietly, but with a touch of exasperation, of desperation and anger and pain.

            Louis doesn’t respond. He straightens his clothes and runs his hands through his hair, fixing the fly-away fronts. He goes back to the makeshift door and starts to open it.

            “What did you mean,” Louis asks, “when you said I know better than that? What did that mean?” The intent is clear and hides a wobble that Harry almost doesn’t catch.

            “Does it matter?” Harry responds

            “Yeah, it does. What did you mean? What do you want from me?”

            “Nothing, Lou. Why don’t you go? Be happy or summat.”

            “I am happy. I’m very—she makes me—I’m fine.”

            “I know.”

            “So then why—” Louis starts, crossing back into the room.

            “It’s shit, innit?” Harry asks. Louis scratches his head and lets his hair fall into his face again. There was a nervous energy before, back when Louis was swollen, back long before that Harry supposes. Now, it’s gone. Louis’ deflated, and the broken bits are showing again.

            “I’m gonna leave you alone now, Harry. And I mean it,” Louis says out of nowhere. “I’m gonna live my life and I’m gonna – fuck you, man. I’m fine. You’ll see.”

            There’s music playing outside when Louis opens the door to leave. Harry hasn’t quite placed the tune as the door snicks shut again. He stares at the place Louis was far after he’s gone.

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

Harry looks at the suit in his closet: a new one, a normal one. Despite the money he spent and the promises he made, he sits on his bed in his London home in front of his open wardrobe with a bottle of Glenlivet and bad music playing. He doesn’t think about the proper princes and pretty little princesses with catheters and no hair. He doesn’t think about the shirt he gave Johannah, or his own mother, heart halfway to the museum in a fancy ball gown, body firmly in Holmes Chapel holding his stepfather’s hand over Scrabble boards and bottles of wine. And he doesn’t think of Louis, too afraid and too boyish to wear the tuxedo their PR suggested, the prince’s costume the charity requested. Harry doesn’t think of the reason behind the ball, that despite the goodwill and millions and millions of pounds, that it is all only to polish what shouldn’t be tarnished. So Harry drinks. Harry drinks and Harry plays loud music and Harry hears the beeping of his phone like the beeping of hospital machines, tutus and labored breaths that sound of the _good fucking riddance_ message from the Irish one. Harry just drinks.

 

Chapter 5

 

_They were never a secret, not really. From the beginning, people figured out there was something more than friendship, that this wasn’t the way mates acted. Harry wasn’t sure how. He thought they played it fairly cool. That he never touched Louis unless he had to. He always had to. And Louis never looked at Harry unless it mattered. It never mattered unless the pictures tell the truth._

            _Still everybody knew, knew enough, but they believed what they were told. It made everybody just this side of uneasy, almost uncomfortable; Zayn skirted out of rooms, and Niall looked at Harry like there was doom written on his face. Liam sang the songs and listened to whatever Louis told him, even back then. Once, as they tried to explore each other for the first time, always for the first time each time, Liam wandered in. He saw them, knee to knee huddled on the bottom bunk, foreheads touching and hands in each other’s laps. Harry was sure he could hear the labored breathing and the hitch when Louis’ nail caught the underside of Harry’s tip. He could feel the accidental intimacy of the moment leave as Liam opened the door, and in that moment, Harry knew that no matter what, they’d never be the same. Liam backed out with a ‘Sorry, mates,’ running into Matt and Aiden who were calling for Harry and Louis, seeking out an adventure. As the door closed, Harry could hear Liam say the boys were asleep in the room, said to leave them to it. In a way, HarryandLouis taught Liam to be brave, that he could be a part of the outside world. Later, it’d be the one thing Harry knew he’d given his friend._

 

_Zayn grabbed Harry by the arm later, after he and Louis had finished and cleaned up and Louis sought out Liam to clear up what he’d seen, to tell him what he’d call the truth of it. Zayn was waiting outside the toilets for Harry during the break from rehearsals._

_“Harry,” he said, so seriously that his thick Bradford accent flattened out. “If you break up, I’m picking him.”_

            _“What?” Harry said, shrugging out of Zayn’s grip. “Why would you, we’re not going to break up.”_

_“I think you’re gay, but Louis’ not.”_

_“I’m not gay,” Harry said, trying not to wince from Zayn’s words._

            _Harry wasn’t gay; he was sure of that. He liked the curves and dips of a woman, how his hand fit into the small of one’s back, how his growing palm felt groping a breast, making the nipple bud, making the body move and change. He loved how his fingers never failed to reach that spot, how his thumb could trace a name into a clit. He loved the different type of staccato, how he could make a melody out of groans and chants and a moan of his own for harmony. Harry loved making the growing girls into natural women, that he could do that. No, Harry definitely liked women. But he also liked Louis. Louis had his own curves and thick thighs, sculpted calves covered in fine yet coarse hair. Louis had his own rhythm, his own changes and music. Harry loved how Louis could bring him to the edge, how his voice constantly played in Harry’s ears when he had his fingers crooked in Harry. Harry loved how Louis could make him sing. Louis, could make him sing. No, he definitely wasn’t gay, but he was definitely Louis. He’d thought about men over the years, gotten off to them and snuck handjobs when he was supposed to be studying at Will’s house. But those moments and those boys weren’t Louis. And Louis was all that Harry wanted, really._

            _“I’m not,” Harry repeated because Zayn just rolled his eyes in the way Louis seemed to have taught him._

_“Yeah, well, if you break up, I’ll have to pick him. I’ll have to.”_

_“We can’t break up – we’re not even together.”_

_Zayn scoffed. “Yeah, yeah, I know. We all know.”_

_“We’re not,” Harry tried again._

_“That’s what I meant, Hazza. We know you’re not together. But if you break up, I’m still picking him.”_

 

 

***

 

As the days start to echo the remaining length of the band, there’s a drive to come together, to be close and to be the same little boys from 2010, spilling secrets and stolen cigarettes in a small town in Cheshire, in a studio in London, in places throughout their years. They all ache for familiarity, for an ending that is strong and true. Harry wants it too, he supposes. It would be nice to end with no ill will, no animosity. The part of him that’s not tired wants nothing more than to be a part of the group again. No one had chosen Louis per se, but Harry had never quite grasped the loneliness like the other had. Louis has music with Liam, pints and sports with Niall, drugs and general apathy with Zayn, while he was there, bitterness and regret when he wasn’t. But Harry has nothing. He’s spent too much time growing up without growing closer that at twenty-one, they are strangers again. He knows how Niall takes his tea, but not the name of the brothers he travels with. He knows of Liam’s dogs and Liam’s girls, but not the meaning or necessity behind his last tattoos. He never knew Zayn. He never knows Louis.

            But, now it is the end. There isn’t anything left after this. It is as good a time as any to reconnect, to be one of the number. Four Almighty and all. He can do it; everybody wants to.  Harry vows to be a better sort of friend, a better sort of teammate and ally. At least for now. There are text conversations with Liam with vague promises about writing and music and tattoos, maybe. There are pints and renewed jokes and Fifa time with Niall. He doesn’t delete Zayn’s number. That’s enough.

            And Louis. Louis’ done what he promised. True to his word, Louis stays away from Harry. It isn’t _Where We Are_ bad, but still, Harry notices. The semi-private moments in the One Direction camp seem to be even quieter. The distance on stage seems reciprocated instead of tolerated. Part of him feels like it’s exactly what he asked for. What he wanted, what he’d beg for over the years. In his hurt, he’d always dreamed of a silence that felt both natural and forced. And he now he has it. Funny things, dreams. Out of all the ones wasted over four and a bit years, this is the one that comes true. And in the most public of ways. Because for all of Louis’ staying away, Harry knows he should’ve expected the late night calls, the drunken labored breathing when everyone has passed out and the quiet is more than Louis’ broken stubbornness can take.

            When they first broke up, for good that time, Louis would break every once in a while and do the same. Call as if he had a right, like he was afraid of the world and its definition of the night; and Harry was the only one who could turn on the light and show him there were no monsters. Harry could tune out the demons that shouted down at Louis from his seemingly permanent position in the mire.

            And so the calls start again. When everyone is trying to be together and trying to end strong, Louis calls as if it is for the first time, and he has no idea what to expect. Or maybe he does, Harry never did know. Anyway, Louis begins the calls again, and Harry thinks it really is a full circle.

 

It was another one of those nights, where Harry drinks in the midnight and the booze when the phone rings. Again. He lets it go once, twice, but by the third time, he knows he has to pick it up for the peace of silence. He doesn’t say anything at first, waiting like all the times before. Before when Louis would just breathe and Harry would just cry. Like all the times where Harry didn’t know if Louis was really there, or if it was another one of those dreams. But Harry knows he’s awake now, knows that he’s an even bottle in and a half a shot away from too much booze and not enough midnight. This time, he answers the phone and knows what to do. Knows that it’s okay to wait.

            Louis just breathes; Harry can hear someone else, a different person rustling around, and while it doesn’t feel intimate, Harry knows that sound. He’s been that sound. But this is a time just like before where the odds are split on whether the person and the phone call are together on purpose. 50% the bourbon Louis chooses to his liquid courage; 50% the blonde or maybe just one of his bevy of brunettes, maybe a new one of them. The shuffling settles and Harry lets the silence goes for a minute, maybe two, before he clears his throat.

            “Yeah?” he asks.

            “I…”

            “What, Lou?” Harry says, almost surprised that his tiredness came out with such venom.

            “Jesus, Haz. Just calling is all.” Louis slurs a bit, and there’s the sound of slurping that both grosses Harry out and makes his bones groan at the intimacy. The sounds cease again, and the breaths takes over again.

            “What if I can’t do it?”

            Louis is not very fair. Is very not fair. It’s not fair, and this isn’t Harry’s fault, and the dreams he called plans that he etched in the invisible sides of bunk beds and hotel beds all shattered long ago. This simply isn’t fair. Yet Louis keeps raking and raping him, turning the distances into dust, turning everything they’ve both created meticulously and for the safety for all of those involved into a sport. Into a farce. Especially him. Especially her. There will be nothing left of Harry’s memories but silent conversations of Louis’ desperation and things neither of them can voice. _What if I can’t do it_ meaning _What if I can’t be a father?_ and _What if I am my father?_ _What if I’m my dad?_ meaning _What if I’m everything I’m terrified of_. What if he can’t do it. Harry knows Louis can’t do it in the same breath that he knows that he can’t. So Harry doesn’t answer. The silence stretches, and he can almost hear the fear give way to anger. Almost.

            “You’re supposed to say I can, summat. Isn’t that why I keep you around?” Louis laughs bitterly.

            “Go to bed, Louis.” Harry hangs up and walks upstairs, leaving the phone on the couch. He retrieves it later, the message clear and correct on the screen.

            _What if I’m not all right?_

            “You will be,” he whispers. _I don’t know how to let you not be._


	6. Chapter 6

 

 

Sex is about love for Harry, war for Louis. But sometimes it’s the opposite. Sometimes, with every thrust and every bite, with every moan and stolen moment that is just his, Harry is battling and fighting and battling for Louis. Like Louis is drowning in the worst sense of the word, and Harry thinks, he knows, that if he could reach further and fuck harder and foil to both the right and to the end, he’d be able to bring Louis gasping to the surface, thankful to be home on board their ship. Home.

            But mostly, it’s Louis fighting. Every moment and touch and sweep and his sticky and brittle tongue is him fighting to escape, fighting to stay present and here and fighting to have a future. Any future that has him alive and here. Harry knows this. He knows. So he lays on his back and takes the licks. Sex is about love for Louis, about war for Harry. Something like that.

 

Chapter Six

 

_“Who are we hiding this from?”_

_The moment the words left Harry’s mouth, he knew he’d fucked up. If he’d learned anything from being on the X-Factor, it’s that there are things, big and scary and real-world things that aren’t spoken about. That he shouldn’t address. Every week, they tried to control the whispers, the feelings of *maybe, maybe*. They’d seen the bravado of others, watched them fall, watched their shoulders slump, and their voices throw pitches; their faces changing from *I know* to *I knew,* *I had it* from *I’ve got it.* Every week it happened, and so every week the boys drew together, drew peace from Zayn’s ability to quiet at times, hopes from Liam’s vocal drills, sincerity and hope from Niall. Harry wasn’t sure that they drew from him, but they liked him; he was liked, and it meant more than most other superlatives._

            _From Louis, from Louis they drew everything. He was the center and the heart, the energy; the ability to be a group, to be One Direction. The crowds didn’t get to hear Louis’ voice, but the four of them, Harry and Liam and Zayn and Niall, they did; which, despite the grumbling in the phone calls to his mother in Doncaster the other boys pretended not to hear, it was more than enough. It was everything to Harry._

            _So he knew better than to ask, knew it was better to assume, but it was a quiet and desperate thought he needed to give voice to, to hold onto the semblance of sanity._

            _*Who are we hiding this from?*_ _meaning *Are we hiding this?*_ _meaning *We are* meaning *What is this?* *Are we this?* *Are we?* meaning *Will we be okay?*_

            _“Who are we hiding this from?” Harry asked._

_Louis stares back at him, and Harry isn’t sure if he’d even heard him. He went to repeat himself, but when he opened his mouth, Louis stood abruptly, hurtling fast towards the door._

            _Later that night, Louis slid into bed with Harry like normal, like always, and he pushed and pushed and prodded at the bedding until it was comfortable, until it seemed he could disappear in a sea of blue and green._

_“I have a girlfriend,” he said to the cleft in Harry’s shoulder. “I have a girlfriend, yeah? And I love her, and this is all hard.” Harry noticed the shake that came only in the shape of his accent, that it grew only every time Louis was scared, every time he was hiding something, mostly from himself._

            _“I have a girlfriend, and I love her, and this is all hard,” Louis said, and he began to draw patterns on the seams of Harry’s sleep pants._

_“Yeah,” Harry said._

_“You knew that, Haz. I love her like loads. She’s the best.”_

_“Yeah, okay.”_

            _And Harry could admit to himself that it hurt to hear, just a bit. That he’d expected to hear some sort of fierce passion or denial, a whispered *You’re the best, Harry. You are. No, you are.* And sometimes, when he thought of Louis and all the things he didn’t know he could want, he imagined he was a girl because it was easier, because then he was allowed to be emotional and to pine and to be confused and to want Louis and to be wanted by Louis and to want Louis again. It would’ve been easier to hold his heart here, where it belongs, instead of thinking about slinging it at the young, small Yorkshire lad who was only good at catching things with his feet. *I love her loads and she’s the best.* *Yeah.* *Yeah.* *Okay.*_

            _Louis and Harry laid for ages, Louis doodling on the other boy and Harry hoping the other boy could pretend that they’d never had this conversation. They could’ve just argued over laundry or smelly shoes and fight over the absence of socks. Harry hoped it, didn’t wish it though that would’ve made more sense. He struggled to sit up then, but Louis’ weight held him down. (In years, it would be one of the defining traits and feelings and repetitions of his life.)_

_“Do you want to finish then?” Harry asked, clear and slow. *It*, *this*, *me.*_

            “ _No,” Louis replied, sitting up straight and placing his hand on Harry’s narrow chest. “No Hazza; you’re lovely, so lovely. I like you, what we’re doing. This is everything –”_

            _Louis didn’t finish, and Harry didn’t interrupt. He felt Louis’ hand move with slow purpose, towards the way he knew Harry tucked. He weighted and waited._

_“It is right?” he whispered._

_“Isn’t it?”_

_“Doesn’t feel like it? Maybe?”_

_“Do you want me to break-up with Han or summat?” Louis huffed, the circles halting. “Cause that’s not on, H.”_

_“No,” Harry answered quickly. “No, swear –honest!”_

_“Then what do you want? What do you want from me?”_

_“Nothing. I don’t know.”_

_“You don’t want to know.”_

_“Maybe,” Harry said. Louis dropped back down again, snuck back into his spot, curled around Harry like a lash._

_“We can just be a secret, yeah?” Louis said into the dark, into the fabric of Harry’s favorite shirt._

            * _So who are we hiding this from?*_ _In the even silence of Louis’ breaths, the answer was clear. Everyone and themselves._

 

 

***

 

_Upstairs_ , the text message reads. Harry fishes his phone out of his pocket whilst Louis holds court in a rented house for sale. It’s almost time now, just a show or two left, and the band of brothers routine will be struck. Harry continues to bond again, continues to pretend again until one day, on stage in the middle of a song about times they’ve loved and people they’d never forget, he realizes he isn’t pretending anymore. He is okay with these people, more than okay. He loves these people. All of them. So this night, after a day of final touches and meetings, and a night of singing to people who worship them in a way that still makes Harry almost uncomfortable, they decide that they would forgo the clubs and the bars in lieu of the house Louis’d rented after his split with Eleanor. They would stick together. Louis and Harry and Niall and Liam. Andy and the Donny boys, Basil and Mark and even Lou without Lux but with Lottie and Helena; they all sprawl across the house and its living room, nursing beers and slamming shots. There is a complicated charades game going on near the hearth. Louis seems to be simultaneously winning the game and changing the rules, barking loudly as others groaned. When Harry’s phone goes off, Louis is sloshing beer onto the mantle, dancing a small jig of victory and challenging others to a rematch. Lottie is arguing with Calvin while perched next to Oli, whose face betrays him.

            _Upstairs_ the first text reads, followed by a simple _now._

            Harry recognizes that he has a choice here, recognizes that he’s doing good, doing well, doing fine. That he’s managed to be fine with Louis in a box in the corner of his brain, and proud that he leaves the boy there all the time. But the text message says _now_ and Harry says _no_ in his brain as he types _“How long?” How long until you join me? How long do I get your for? How long until I don’t want you anymore? How long until the until?_

            _Soon_. Forever. Until it’s over.

            Harry makes his excuses to the thin air and tells his conscious which sounds like his mother to take a quick break. He mindlessly stretches his jaw as he goes up the stairs, knows exactly what Louis is asking for.

 

He turns at the staircase, away from Louis’ room and into a random guest bathroom. Even the en-suite feels too familiar. He doesn’t want anything to distract him from this. Doesn’t want the steady scent around him when he takes him down all the way. He just wants what’s fresh. Leave the memories in a different room.

            _Where are you?_ His phone buzzes, and Harry cracks the door. It takes a few seconds, but Louis slips through. He bounces on his toes and stares at Harry’s chest, already heaving. Harry stares at his lips, slightly chapped and bitten from the short trek upstairs. He wants this, he does. Louis looks up, and Harry looks down, and there is no blue. No preamble or lust-filled kissing or secrets. Just this. Just them. Just this. This Harry can do.

            “Get on your knees.”

            And Harry drops because he’s a good boy, and Louis never has to tell him more than once because he just does. Harry palms himself, and he watches Louis’ dick twitch with interest through his trackies. He takes his time, nuzzling his mouth over the trousers. Louis tips his jaw up, puts one hand through Harry’s stressed-out curls. His other thumb parts his lips and makes Harry’s mouth water. Louis tastes like stale cigarettes and expensive beer. Of fast food and energy and boy and man and sex. He smells like Louis.

            “Played with meself on the stairs. Bet you can already taste me.”

            Harry groans around Louis’ thumb, sucking it and swirling it round with the finesse that comes with skill and memorization. Louis will always be his favorite, his place on his tongue home. Harry slides down Louis’ pants; he doesn’t ask permission.

            Louis’ dick almost hits Harry in the face as it arches up and forward. It’s thick and wet and it’s almost a miracle there’s no dime-sized come stain on his trackies. Everybody would know then. Everybody will know anyways.

            Louis dives both hands in Harry’s hair, twirls it in a way that will surely cause knots, and pulls. Hard. Harry grunts and bucks his hips, looking straight into Louis’ eyes. They’re black now, blown as wide as his narrow hips. He uses just those his to run his penis over Harry’s face, his cheeks and almost open lips. The perfect amount of precome spurts out and drops from Harry’s nose. His eyes shutter close.

            Louis pulls again, and Harry groans louder this time, a _please_ mixed with a _hurt me_ mixed with a _don’t_ all dying on his lips.

            “Open,” Louis says, and it occurs to Harry that he’s tipped forward, that his forehead rests on Louis’ hip. He bites for the noise it makes. He opens his eyes and allows Louis to pull his head back again, to direct him. Louis looks straight into his eyes and Harry only has a split second to catch it, the spit that dribbles from Louis’ lips. Louis spits down onto his cock, onto H’s lips and he’s gross and awful and Harry wants everything he has to offer. It’s all his anyways.

            He wastes no more time. In between one breath and the next, Harry takes him down to the hilt. Louis slouches back, and his hands become slack as a sound he only makes for Harry slides out. This isn’t for show as much as it is. Harry knows what he’s doing. Louis’ cock stays buried in his throat, Harry’s hands holding his hips down so all Louis can do is feel the wet, the swallowed, pressured heat. He holds him there for ages, breathing in the musky scent, while Louis struggles for control. Then it happens for the third time. Louis yanks on Harry’s hair and it makes Harry’s own precome stain his pants. He pulls out and Harry gulps in air before Louis slams back in, fucking his mouth relentlessly. They battle back and forth; Harry taking it and then pushing Louis against the counter to suck only the deep pink tip. He licks a stripe up the bottom of the cock, then goes down again. He subtly bites at the base in a way that would hurt if it wasn’t Louis, if Louis scream just loud enough for Harry to feel it in his bones. He hums around the dick, lets the vibrations carry up Louis’ back and down his legs until the only things holding Louis up are sheer will and Harry’s hands pressing deep bruises into the base of his spine. _I like it here,_ Harry thinks as he gives Louis control yet again. Louis slams his cock as hard as he can into Harrys mouth, where it catches on his cheek and hurts them both. Neither care. They just straighten out and let Louis pound away until they’re both dizzy with it, aching from the effort and the need.

            And then Harry pulls away. He’s a wrecked mess, precome and spit and shame in his mouth and hair and even in his eyes. He looks up shamelessly at Louis, watching desire teemed with trust. There are no questions here. Louis doesn’t know and doesn’t care. Harry knows he trusts Harry to take care of him. And so he does.

            Without moving from the floor, Harry pulls Louis from the counter and spins him around. Louis collapses, his dick painfully caught between his body and the cool granite countertop. He rubs it for relief. Harry takes his broad hands and puts Louis on display. There’s a whine from the other boy’s throat, a demand to _do something, please Haz_ that goes unanswered. This isn’t about Louis anymore. Harry is taking his reward. He’s taking his time.

            He laps at Louis’ balls, taking one and then the other, then both in his mouth at the same time. His teeth tease the sensitive flesh, and Louis cries out nonsense words that sound like a symphony. He reaches to lube his hand up from Louis’ spit slick dick and uses it to play with the puckered skin around the older lad’s hole. Louis has always been a mess for it, for being eaten out and made to take it, but this time, with his shouts and groans floating down the stairs towards the party who at once are straining to hear and to block, to ignore the sounds, it seems different.

            Finally, finally, finally, Harry moves up and in. Paints a stripe on Louis’ crack, all the way up and back down again. He waits with his tongue pressed against his opening just waiting. The seconds tick by. He smells the desperation and heat. He dives in.

            There is no preamble. There are no kitten licks or little nips or worshipping at the place time and a beleaguered home life built. Harry licks and sucks and swirls, pushing in and in again. Louis isn’t clean, not all the way, but there’s an intimacy to doing this anyways, to no apologies or excuses. This is where Harry belongs. Louis pants and moans and when Harry’s thumb sneaks in, Louis screams, begs and begs for more.

            “I—” he says, and it’s almost lost in the thick of his accent and breath. “Please – fuck, please H!”

            Harry just continues to work, continues to remind Louis who he will always belong to, no matter what the ownership papers say. He withdraws for just a moment and Louis’ body begins to twist around before Harry’s hands leave his ass and push him back onto the counter. The two look up at the same times, lock eyes in the mirror as Harry shoves his hand into Louis’ mouth, forcing him to suck. To slobber. To soak. Harry goes straight to two, twisting and curling his now wet fingers, brushing his favorite part of Louis’ entire body. He loves the hidden button only he can press. More than the other lad’s thick hips and strong thighs, more than the collarbones he used to drink his own come out if, more than any place in their sick and twisted fantasy. Harry pushes and twists and moves, his eyes never leaving Louis’ in the mirror. Both have tears in their eyes. Louis opens his mouth as if to speak, to beg, to pray, to something important that Harry doesn’t want nor doesn’t need to hear. So he speaks instead.

            “No.”

            “I can’t, it’s too – fuck. Fuck, I can’t.”

            He does anyways. With a primal scream, Louis comes all over the counter and his rucked up shirt. He comes, and he comes, and he cries, and Harry doesn’t stop, keeps moving and pushing, buries his tongue deep into his ass again; doesn’t stop until he has to, until Louis is a sobbing, blubbering mess, slinking onto the floor, leaning his entire dirty weight onto the other boy. He can’t breathe, and for a split second, Harry is terrified that he’s having a panic attack. Louis takes gulps of air and hasn’t stopped crying, in that much pleasure, in that much pain. He pushes weakly at Harry, trying to form words Harry can’t understand. After the third attempt, he hears it.

            “Up, up, up.”

            Harry stands up and leans against the counter, his hand catching the cooling and sticky puddle of come. He drips it onto Louis’ face, forcing the kneeling boy to watch him lick his own fingers clean. Louis is useless, pawing at the front of Harry’s jeans, too weak to unbutton them himself. Harry uses one hand, the dirty one, to do it for him. His clean hand caresses Louis’ face in a movement far too sweet and far too intimate for a moment such as this. Harry’s cock is past swollen, been leaking since Louis spit in his face hours or minutes or seconds ago. Louis grasps it clumsily, uses all of his strength to surge forward to take it in. He can’t. It’s too massive, too big for what Louis can do. Instead, he just leans his face against Harry’s inner thigh, trusts him to do what Louis physically can’t. His body is boneless yet on fire, cool and surging and short-circuited. He can see nothing, blacked out and going by feel. And Harry is proud.

 

It takes very little for Harry to come. His massive hand covers Louis’ own and together, they stroke his cock until he’s almost done. Then Louis leans back and looks up at Harry. He nods his head and runs his right hand down Harry’s left thigh.

            “Mine.”

            Harry shoots all over Louis’ face. It catches his eye, yet Louis doesn’t move, his lips and cheeks and the bridge of his nose painted in streaks of white. Harry doesn’t stop until there’s nothing but drips and drops, and Louis reaches out with his tongue to lick the slit. To make it hurt. So it burns.

            Harry looks down at Louis and feels brave, and empty. This wasn’t supposed to happen. It never is. Time and again, they find themselves here, in a secret room in a secret place, covered in lust and betrayal for each other. “Last time,” they always say. _Last time, last time, last time._ It’s a semi-permanent chant, as if to make it easier, to drive away the guilt wrapped in the memory of a girl somewhere or a boy in love. This time there is no else. There’s no need for such lies. Harry knows all of Louis’ secrets, knows that he’s signed up for the last time in real life. He knows. He just can’t figure out if he cares. If he stays. So he stares down at the mess of the love of his life and feels brave and empty.

            “Stay.”

            His voice is wrecked. Like he just took all he could, like Louis raped his mouth, and he liked it. Like he asked for more.

            “Stay there,” Harry says, and he wipes his cock on Louis’ hair, pulls up his pants and jeans, and exits the bathroom. He walks downstairs to thunderous applause.


	7. Chapter 7

 

 

At some point, they try everything. They get drunk one night in America and get on Tumblr, finding smutty stories and pictures of themselves, see what people think they do. And then they do it. Harry never told Louis about the irony of it, how embarrassed Louis seemed of them and him and Harry, and the sex they shared and the way they shared it. How the closer the two became, the laddier Louis became; how he couldn’t drop his voice, but he could drop his hands, refuse braces and Toms, rediscover joggers and sport and anything that wouldn’t hint that sometimes he liked being on his back for a boy. That sometimes, he liked to investigate Harry with his tongue, his mouth sucking and blowing and bowing and preaching at the shrine of Harry’s cock. That sometimes he liked to tell Harry what to do, that sometimes he cried, sometimes it felt good to hurt. Harry knew that Louis would do anything to keep anyone from discovering his twisted version of a secret. So he kept it and they tried a bit of this and a bit of that. Harry never gets on Tumblr anymore.

 

Chapter 7

 

_When he figured out he was in love with the boy, it was onstage. Of course it was. It’s where Louis was always the shiniest, always the brightest._

_It was their first real tour, nobody to come after, and nobody to come between. They were seasoned pros in the others’ minds, they’d done it countless times before. Except they weren’t. Harry knew they weren’t, and sometimes, right before the lights went off and the sounds began to change and the screams became real, he still felt like the little boy playing pretend in his mum’s garden. But that night, when the feeling usually hit, when he normally felt nine or three and small and not in the moment, Harry looked over and saw him standing there, talking to Liam and playing with Zayn. He was mid-laugh, and it startled out of Harry, how very much in love he was with the other boy. With Louis._

_Lou Teasdale saw it immediately, saw it again when he ran offstage to change between the seasons._

_“Oh, love,” she said, helping Caroline hand out costumes and bumping into a new grip whose only job was, it seemed, to create and find and replace the Styrofoam balls they threw onstage. “Don’t tell him now,” she whispered as Harry instinctively and unconsciously pulled towards Louis. “Get through the show, alright? Afterwards, babe. Later, yeah?” She shoved Harry onstage, and the lights were far too bright for his eyes, and he stumbled, and of course Louis was there to catch him. He always was. Except he wasn’t._

_Harry didn’t tell him later that night. After the show and the hugs and meals and chatter, he went to the room he was sharing with Niall and mulled it over. He sounded it out against the whir of the air conditioning and the sounds of the snores of the Irishman. It felt real, this feeling, it felt grown-up. The feeling made him know he’d never feel like a little boy again, not if Louis was there, not if he was in love. In love. In something. Harry promised himself that he wouldn’t share it, would never tell Lou how he felt. It was for Harry alone, and as plain as it was written on his face, as easy as it was to see in his sheets and his shoes and their shared closets, this feeling wasn’t for anyone but him alone._

_(Grimmy called him out on it two weeks later, when the band returned home for a break. Louis said it later still, when it was their turn to bunk together, whispered it before Harry fell asleep. “You’re good at belonging to me,” meaning *I love you.* *And you love me.* Harry never did manage to say it in time.)_

 

 

***

 

 

The tour ends. The X-Factor comes and goes. It’s the 15th of December, and One Direction has called it a day. For now. For now, all that’s left is four lovely boys who are almost like men and who have never been alone in five whole years. That’s a long time.

            Harry looks around the dining room table of Niall’s house and thinks he is honored to be remembered outside these walls with them. He’s in the history books, surely, but not alone. Tonight, he is okay with that.

 

Tonight had been Niall’s idea. They were never going to return to the bungalow, but this, a _one last time, one more time_ moment felt good. Felt right. Necessary. One more time as One Direction. So Niall brings his barbecue out and freezes his tits off in December; Liam brings his good weed. Harry brings a good bottle of scotch and two of wine, and Louis brings nobody (which, Harry thought, was the greatest thing he could bring).

            Harry had assumed they would all reminisce, all talk about the good times gone by and spare a thought or two for the antics they would never pull again. He’d thought they’d take some time to argue about parting gifts some more, finally get rid of that stupid bloody coin idea he’d suggested during some random meeting as a joke. ( _“Ah, that’s wicked, mate,”_ Liam had said at the time. _“Like a Queen’s medallion.”_ ) Harry’d thought – God, he’d basically wished that this was it, the last private send-off, and that it would be great. What they all needed, what they all deserved. But Niall wants to talk about sport, and Liam and Louis want to talk about their New Year’s plans. So Harry sits at the table on his mobile, chit-chatting with Grimmy about the bar he’s in. It is turning out to be a night like the others, where they co-existed, and Harry feels on the line between welcome and wanted and just there. But then Niall speaks up.

            “Alright boys. What are we doing for the rest of our lives?” Niall licks at the foam on his upper lip and Harry is struck by how fantastical yet unrealistic it is to install working beer taps and kegs in a home bar.

            “Don’t be dramatic, Neil,” Louis says, picking up his bottle and taking a slug. “It’ll be a year, two tops.”

            “Yeah,” Liam chimes in, “it’s not forever.”

            Niall snorts and the mood in the room shifts to uneasy. This isn’t what Harry wanted either. He assumes it wasn’t what Niall wanted either when he’d asked the question.

            _This is not the end, This Is Not The End_ they sang two nights ago, and Harry almost believes that they had meant it. That this isn’t the end, that they’d make it and be better in the future, better for each other. He’d hung onto the feeling as they exited the stage, as their mothers and a brother, and too many sisters and one father too all rallied behind them and said words like _pride_ and _love_ and _forever grateful._ And _together_. Harry felt they really could make it right until Niall reminds them all that they really can’t. The reasons are plenty and they hang from the fucking rafters. _This is not the end, This Is Not The End._ It is. It is.

            “Might actually travel the world again,” Niall says, and everybody laughs because they’re supposed to.

            “Come off it, mate,” Louis says, throwing a crisp and the Irish lad’s head.

            “Still shilling lines from the sheet,” Harry adds in a giggle.

            “Yes, friends, family and all that, Nialler!”

            “Lads’ holiday, chaps, chip-chip,” says Liam.

            “I might do!” Niall says with a grin and a shrug. He joins with the laughter after a moment.

            “Alright, alright,” he says. “Say what you will, but I’m doing something. Maybe. Might just get drink and watch sport. Might just get lost somewhere where nobody knows me.”

            “Yeah, well try Antarctica first, mate,” says Louis with a cheek and a smile.

            “Tell me how it is,” Harry adds for good measure. And the thing is, this is what they can do. HarryandLouis can banter and they know it and Harry enjoys it when he can. He can now.

            “You’d think Gomez will make it with him if he goes, Haz?”

            “Don’t know, she’s cold enough – don’t know if she’d survive. Reckon she’ll need a—”

            “Big, strong man and summat! Ha! Well, better choices to be made.”

            “Something for the plaques on the wall, mate.”

            And they’re all smiling and laughing and it’s natural is the thing. Louis drains his bottle and rolls it across the table to Niall who’s still steadily giggling. Liam looks sheepish, like he’s seventeen again and doesn’t know how to jump in, doesn’t know if he’s allowed to participate. Harry thinks it’s more Liam’s place than his, but _one last time, one more time._

            “Say cheers to the penguins for me and tell me how it is,” Louis says, cheersing with the bottle of Harry’s scotch sat round the middle of the table.

            There are no penguins in Antarctica, Harry thinks. He starts to Google it whilst realizing that he might be a step past tipsy, one towards drunk. They all are. But this is what he did want. So he just takes a swig and scrolls.

            Niall goes to open his mouth, but Liam pops in first.

            “I’ve got a couple of songs coming” he says, and the room shifts to him.

            “Big Payno remixes,” Niall laughs.

            “No, I’m serious. I talked to some people, J and that lot. They said they liked me stuff. Might go record at the beginning of the year.”

            “Well, good on ya, lad,” Louis says. “Save the good stuff for 78, alright?”

            Liam rolls his eyes and Harry reaches over to ruffle his too-gelled hair. Niall rises and stretches, and tells them all he’s got _FIFA_ queued up and to hurry up with the bong. The four move to the living room and it’s 2010 with one glaring absence no longer needed to make everything feel right and tick. Four Almighty, and all that. Four Almighty indeed.

 

_What is everyone doing with the rest of their lives?_ Harry thinks, as he passes the controller over his body and takes a rip from the offered bong. _What is everyone doing?_ In some ways, it’s absolutely simple. Everyone is moving on and growing older and growing up. Everyone is pretending that they can still do these things, be friends, be cordial and high and young all at the same time.

            Harry looks at Louis who’s just burped and is laughing in the Payno’s face. What is Louis doing with the rest of his life? Does it matter? Does it matter to Harry? H thinks about watching Louis hustle to the beat of his mother’s ambitions. The media company and the record label and The X-Factor come full circle. Without the ever-present reminder, it seems like Louis’ doing exactly what he wants. But the time bomb is still ticking and there are factors Harry can’t ignore. Though it seems that Louis can. Harry wonders if the boy will move. If he will move and change in one way; or remain still, yet change in another. He wonders if Louis thinks about things like that, in terms of _here_ or _there_ , _mine_ or _not_. It occurs to Harry, over the shouts from the other lads, that Louis didn’t answer the question. He hears Liam ask about Chicago and the mention of a girl whose name he didn’t catch. Maybe that’s his answer then.

            One game moves into the next, and it is Harry’s turn. He takes the controller from a smiling Liam who looks both kind and sad. Like he’s nineteen this time and has no hair and wild ambitions but timid fear. They all continue to talk and continue to laugh and everyone continues to forget that they don’t do this anymore. As much as that is exactly what he wanted when he walked in hours ago, the weed’s made Harry paranoid now, and he can’t think in holy hopes and wishes and prayers. He takes another pull before passing and thinks that maybe he should be forgotten. That he should go back to when he was more sober and was having a slightly miserable time. Because now he’s included and now he’s in the number and he doesn’t know why, but it makes him all at once feel sad and desired.

            Harry watches the game and quickly starts to rewrite his future which hasn’t been this inevitable in three bloody years. Harry is going to do the same thing as everyone else. He thinks about rerecording “Don’t Let Me Go.”

           


	8. Chapter 8

 

 

There are things people do not talk about in relationships. Because they are in love and because it hurts and because they are awful. The truth often is. Truths can never be unheard, and truths can never be misread. They become sketched into heads and into ears and into eyes. Truths do. Lies can be steeped into tattoos and wishes, but truths are carved. Both are always felt and never felt when rubbed in weather and whether beaten hands through the mess and the mire and the more. Both never leave. Because they are in love and they are hurt and it is awful. So. There are things people do not talk about in relationships.

 

Chapter 8

 

_The end has a beginning, too. Harry supposed that it’s fair, that it’s true. All good things and bad do. They’d been loving together for a while now, living together for longer. It might have be the opposite. But they were together, and in some ways – in all ways – that was enough for Harry. He is happy. He is. He’s happy. He repeated this mantra to his mother, perpetually concerned for him. Of course. He repeated it to Ed, when the ginger was home from travelling the world. Harry said it while sort of living, sort of squatting on Ed’s couch because he’s not allowed to go to his house. It’s management’s call. It always is. Management said it’s better for HarryandLouis if HarryandLouis played a part and played a part for a while, or maybe for good. Management said they’re too obvious and calls them on every inside moment made out. But still, it’s important to note, important to Harry and maybe to Louis, but it’s important to note that it was their decision. Harry and Louis make the decisions about HarryandLouis. No matter how it seems._

_The Larries call the parting fake, and the antis say that Louis is with Eleanor, and everyone knows it’s bullshit, bullshit, and bullshit some more. It probably is, Harry often though, but it was still all true. Technically, he is obvious, and technically he isn’t living there. Technically, it’s all a bit fake, and technically, Louis is with Eleanor. Technically. Everything has a technicality. Everybody has a degree. Anyway, Harry is happy._

_Harry is happy when he walked into the, his, their flat. The band is on the first break of tour now, and Harry never lost the irony of Take Me Home. His home that’s also his home and their home and their home, Harry and Louis and HarryandLouis, and LouisandEleanor. His home too though. His too._

_He’d just spent the perfect sort of day with Ben and Meredith. The married couple are so fantastic and so in love, and Harry wondered if he and Louis would be the same. Happy and in love. Eventually. Harry unlaced his trainers and tries to remember the joke Ben told him at tea that made Harry squirt a bit of coke out of his nose. It was that funny, Harry thought; and he hoped it could make Louis smile. Louis deserved to smile and to be happy too. Lately, Harry has watched Louis have to change, feel the need to change to be happy, and it isn’t quite clear if the boy truly is. The lad. That’s a change. The mannerisms and, the accent too, despite the distance from Donny. Those are changes. Harry has watched Stan change to Luke change to Calvin change to Oli and change to people who know Harry is Louis’ friend. And that’s okay, Harry thinks, to be friends. Harry and Louis are friends too. But the laddiness becomes so intrinsic that Harry has to squint to find traces of that boy from the stairs and the bathroom and the bunks. Louis is changing and Harry maybe liked it; but he mostly he liked that boy who was a lot of steady things too. The one not wrapped in tattoos and secret stories and alcohol and Eleanor. And lad._ _Harry tells himself that Louis has to prove that he’s earned this life, and that’s okay. It is okay._ _Harry let Louis change, and Harry let Louis prove himself because at night, when nobody is around to see, Louis let Harry crawl into bed, and Louis let Harry trace the outline of his lips and ears with his tongue, and they let each other leave spots and marks nobody else can see. Louis can change, and Louis can prove and Louis is okay. Harry is happy too._

_Harry’s finally out of his shoes and was still trying to remember how to impress Louis when he hears them. Two voices, Louis and his mother. From the direction of the voices, Harry knows Louis is sat round the big couch in the living room with his laptop open to Skype and Johannah’s face, undeniably forced out of his room by the mess he wouldn’t want Jay to see._

_“—love you, I do,” Harry heard Jay say, “I just don’t want you to lose track of anything.”_

_“I—it’s not like that, Mum.”_

_“I’ve seen the way he looks at you, Boo.”_

_Harry could only see the top of Louis’ foot, shoved in a pair of socks he’d probably stolen from Harry’s chest of drawers. Harry still had his keys in his hand, the door still partially open. He’s not quite sure what to do. So he listened._

_“Mum—”_

_“I’m not saying anything, Lou. And I love him, I do – like he was one of_ _me_ _own. I’m just—it’s the big picture, see?”_

_“We’re just mates, that’s all. Could be Oli or summat.”_

            _“You don’t bloody well look at Oli that way,” Jay said, and Harry could hear the quiet accusation behind the words. It isn’t hard. “You don’t look at poor El that way either, come to think of it.”_

_“I don’—I do! I look at El just fine, Mum. She’s me fucking girlfriend,” Louis said. His foot jangled up and down, and Harry wondered if the computer screen was shaking. He imagined Jay would see the earthquake that Harry could feel. The woman scolded Louis on his language, but the boy didn’t back down. Harry was privately proud and ashamedly pleased._

            _“You’re just causing trouble, that’s it,” Louis said._

_“I am not, Louis William, and don’t forget I’m your mother. I’ve seen it with me own eyes! Let alone the whole bleeding internet—”_

_“Oh, yeah, the fucking internet. That makes it true, right?”_

_“No, but like I said, I know what I’ve seen, Lou,” Jay said._

            _“What could you have possibly seen?”_

_“You’re in love with him.”_

_She could’ve whispered it. She could’ve shouted it. Harry had no idea. It was at once the loudest and quietest phrase Harry had ever heard._

_Harry loved Louis. This was something that was true. Written down and scrolled across his skin and his pages and in the air trapped between their shared sheets. Harry loved Louis and Louis loved Harry. Harry thought so, too. Even if the boy never said._

            _*You’re in love with him,* she said, and it’s like a curse and a hope and a tragedy and a prayer all at once. Louis’ foot kept swinging._

_“No-I-Of course I love him, Mum. He’s my best mate. Love isn’t – that’s not – he’s my best mate,” Louis finished lamely._

_“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Lou,” Jay responded._

_“I don’t get it, Mum. What’s the problem with having friends, yeah?”_

            _Harry could hear the frustration in Louis’ voice. Harry could hear the message in Johannah’s. It was clear to him and opaque at best to Louis, and those aren’t the shades needed for a conversation like this. Jay says something, but Harry didn’t catch it, just the groan it elicited from Louis._

            _They’d never had to label what they had; it was always lumped together under the idea of friendship. Harry’d already heard Ed’s philosophy about HarryandLouis: the friendship. *No, no we’re not friends, nor have we ever been.* Friends just sleep in another bed and friends don’t love each other like they do and other things Harry wasn’t quite sure he hadn’t drunkenly spilled on a squatter’s night at Ed’s flat. Friendship, though, was fine. More than. Harry was certain that it was enough, that it made him happy. As long as they could keep that, it would be okay. But with every attempt Jay tried, Harry could see that it might be what he was going to lose. Friendship and happiness both. And other things._

            _The conversation continued, and Harry could hear words like ‘responsibilities’ and ‘sisters’ and ‘real men’ and things that his own mum would never say to him. But Anne wasn’t Johannah and shared none of the same fears of the world or hopes for success and domination. His mum was just proud, without parameters or qualifiers, so Harry is proud too. And Louis tries. Harry is certain of it. The conversation continued, and the two go round and round until it isn’t worth listening to anymore. Harry walked backward towards the still slightly open door, doesn’t remember when he moved closer to the voices and towards Louis’ panicked, confused assurances. Harry slammed the door as loud as he could and puts cheer in his voice when he shouts “Hello? Hello!” His voice may wobble. He can’t tell._

_He knows he is heard in the living room, so he takes his time, trying to figure out how long it would be to take off his shoes, how long it will take to remember he’s happy, again. By the time he wandered towards Louis, he’s sweaty and tired and doing his best not to see the terror on the other boy and lad and boy’s face. The computer is still open, and Harry could see Jay’s carefully constructed face, bright shining smile and tired eyes. Harry sat next to Louis on the couch and found an easy and polite way into the conversation. He chats about the tour and their schedule, how pretty Eleanor looked the last time Jay saw her. Jay makes Harry promise to come see her and the girls soon, and Harry agreed and swore and smiled. The three talk on about everything and anything but Harry and Louis and Harry and Louis and HarryandLouis. Anything at all._

 

***

 

Briana, he decides, is a lovely girl. At first, he had been quietly proud of the fans who saw through her, who called her names and made Louis smoke more and drink more and threaten to quit and come off the leash like a rapid dog. (But not because Louis didn’t like it, but because he couldn’t participate). At first, it had been easy to hate her, easy to understand why he shouldn’t like her and why nobody did.

            _(“She’s a whore,” Niall said simply, which caused Liam to shout and Louis to shove and Harry to sit up straight and to carefully look at no one at all._

_“It’s the mother of his child,” Liam had scolded once Louis had stormed off, calling for one of the lads to bring him beer and boasts and assurances. The other three, Liam and Niall and Harry (Harry was always a bit surprised to be in the number) stayed on the private rooftop pool and terrace the always nameless and barely faceless, fancy hotel had shut down for them. Liam flicked a cigarette butt towards an overly designed ashtray. “Be nice.”_

_“I am nice,” Niall said. “She’s still a fucking whore.” It was in that moment that Harry realized and remembered that he could never love Niall more. Niall who was always honest and always brave and never ever, never truly self-serving. Whereas Harry and Liam and even Zayn fell in love with Louis, Niall fell into an uneasy yet natural companionship. He didn’t need to love him. Niall and Louis were always equals, and it worked in some ways on the surface, friction hidden in places only Harry could see. Harry knew what no one else did, that Niall and Louis’ relationship was surely built on trust and fear. They respected each other and loved each other and had fun, but Louis is and Louis was always just a little bit afraid of Niall. Niall and his ability to see through. Harry knew that Louis could never take comfort in the fact that Niall understood him and could see everything, yet still remained his friend. It is something, both then and now and throughout their many years that Harry had always loved. But Brutus is an honorable man.)_

 

 _Louispalooza_. Harry snorts at the name. The hiatus hasn’t technically started, though they are technically done. The boys are just milling around a bit, attempting to experience freedom. It isn’t anything Harry imagined or signed up for; though, to be honest, nothing in his life is or has been, or will be what he imagined or hoped for. He’s done signing things for now. But he’s free and they all are and his mentions are full of people begging to know where he is, and what he’s doing, and what he thinks of Louispalooza. He has no opinion. Harry is facing a future with no certainty and too many promises, and so Harry chooses not to spare a thought for Louis and his passing flame, the one that Liam swears is wicked and cute and funny as hell.

            _“You’d like her,_ ” Liam texts, and it occurs to Harry that in the beginning and foggy first days of this hiatus, he’s spoken more to Liam than the years on the tour bus. But that’s what this whole thing is for. Harry looks at the message and the attached picture, and sends back an aubergine, a tiny squid, and three question marks and aces.

            “What about the other one?” Harry types. He’s at a party of sorts, the type of people he’s picked up and accidentally dropped along his merry way. Nick is somewhere and Pixie’s already shoved his knee out the way to take a line of the antique coffee table. Harry doesn’t mind. Harry has no opinion. He sends the message and Liam’s answer comes quickly,

            “Come off it,” the message says, “that’s been done for fucking ages.”

            It isn’t what Harry had meant. Harry’d watched Louis stop pretending to like the girl. He’d watched the quick trip to Atlanta and remembers how Niall stopped being the only one to call the blond girl a bitch and a whore, a cunt and a skank and a molly, and, even once, a cancer to ‘their whole fucking lives.’ He remembers when he stopped hating her and said she was lovely. All these moments mix together, it seems. It isn’t what Harry had meant. _What about the other one?_ meaning _What about the mother?_ meaning _What about the child?_ meaning _What about that life?_ meaning _What about whose lives?_ meaning _She’s living my life_ and _she’s living my dreams_ and _she’s living my memories and my scars and my wretched, wretched past._ Meaning what about the other one?

            Harry switches screens and switches hands, puts his mobile in the hand that had been trapped between his body and the arm of the sofa. The other hand moves around the person next to him, grants space for him or her to crawl into his lap and trace his birds. Harry is still on Pixie’s couch, and someone’s hand isn’t where it should be, but Harry isn’t bothered enough to mind. He clicks out of the conversation as someone licks his neck a bit, maybe Caro’s new friend or maybe even Nick, again; certainly not Xander, who’d taken Harry’s silence as it was intended. It wasn’t meant to be an epic romance, and when it finished, it was done.

            His phone buzzes again, and Liam’s name flashes at the top. Harry realizes as he moves his hand down and feels a slight waist and a small arse and just a hint of wetness that Liam’s unanswered ramblings are more about missing his leader than the girl Louis left and the girl Louis left her for. Liam never understood the big picture or sensitivities, and Harry doesn’t feel the need to point out that he isn’t the best person to celebrate Happy Louis in any capacity, let alone this one. Not here. Not while he’s there. Louispalooza. Liam needs a new leader. Harry isn’t it. Harry locks the screen and tosses it, hoping he makes the table, hoping the moment isn’t stolen just yet. If Louis is allowed great adventures in windy lands and seedy cities, surely Harry can sit on this couch on this wasted night and create the same storm in the scene of the room. He tries to focus on the person, on the girl in his lap and his hand in her knickers and his own stolen adventures. He hears Pixie’s catcalls and cries of indecency over the moans in his ears and the feel of unrecognizable lips and dips and too slim hips. It all feels the same once you realize it’s not what you want to feel. Harry does it anyway.

           

The next day, after he’s made it home and showered off the things he thinks he should feel just a bit of shame for, Harry curls up in bed with a cuppa and his phone. His mother already texted three times that day, and so he tries to sound happy and polite and the way he used to when she worried about him before. She always worries. She always loves. He picks his way through the conversation and then onto Twitter, where he thinks of tweeting nonsense just because. Louis is still in Chicago with the girl whose name Harry will never learn and never mention. Louis is still in Chicago and looks all at once terribly miserable and terribly happy and terribly stupid. He looks like Louis. And this should break Harry’s heart. He isn’t done healing yet, he knows (though he’s yet to officially decide what it is he is healing from), so the blurry pictures and a scarf he once wore wrapped around his wrists and a four-poster bed he’d donated years ago, they should break his heart a bit. They should break his heart and break his resolve not to solve his problems in the drink; should cause him to recall a WhatsApp conversation that seems terribly one-sided and not from him. They should do a lot of things. But instead, they make Harry think of the girl.

            Harry knows how both disconcerting and almost like heartbreak it is to watch the love of one’s life in a relationship. And he knows the pregnant girl loves Louis. They all do. It is almost systematically impossible not to love Louis Tomlinson. It is systematically impossible not to love Louis Tomlinson. But it’s an entirely different thing to be loved by Louis Tomlinson. Harry knows the pregnant girl loves him. Harry knows Louis never loved her. Harry watched Louis meet Eleanor and love Eleanor and lose Eleanor. Harry’s lived meeting Louis and loving Louis and losing Louis. He’s watched countless one night stands and quickie blowjobs from never-boys-but-girls just old enough to make the cut, to remind Harry that Louis taught him how to do those things too. He’s been the receiver of the sad smiles and indignant prosecutors and protectors, all who have an opinion of his not so broken yet too shattered heart. He knows how the pregnant girl feels. Officially the other girl now.

            But it’s worse this time, it has to be, because this ‘other’ girl is carrying a life, an empty promise Louis never intended to keep. He imagines her now, sitting alone with her phone, picking though pictures of dog walks and tattoos and drunken nights out. He imagines she must feel how Johannah Poulston-Tomlinson-Deakin did twenty-three or twenty-four years ago when Troy Austin did the same to her, or something similar. He imagines it must be heartbreak this time. His mother still rambles on via text, but Harry throws the phone on the table, decides he’s going to run, to take his offense on the poor girl’s behalf elsewhere. It shouldn’t be kept in the house, he thinks. Briana is a lovely girl.


	9. Chapter 9

 

 

“I am, in fact straight”

Harry has a fantasy. And it might be cruel, he understands that, but still, Harry has a fantasy. When he’s trying to avoid Louis or trying to look past Louis or trying not to love Louis; when he’s trying to be on his own, trying to walk past him and past the ruckus, past Bus 1, when Harry is trying, he thinks about it. His little cruel and little sick rich with pleasure fantasy. To grab Louis by the arm and force him to his knees, chocking the lad with his too prim and too proper and too thick dick, making him take it all in way Louis never quite could or would or did. Harry thinks about punishing the other boy’s arse, making it hurt, making it raw and unprepped and deep and tight. Harry adds for good measure the gruff noises Louis would make, always too proud to love it, too proud to admit to the lust, too used to it all to not get pleasure from the pain. Harry thinks this over and over and over again the fantasy strips come over Louis’ face or Louis’ bum. In the real world, he paints magazines with articles about Louis and articles about Larry that Louis hates so much. Consolation prize. Harry comes and imagines looking straight down on Louis’ life-beaten, thunder-struck face, on his salt water heart and saying it, saying _it_ with an emotionally void voice created from a sweet sick scotch opera. I am in fact straight.

 

Chapter 9

 

_It doesn’t take long, is the thing. Harry assumed it would take longer to lose the patterns and circles he was used to. To create new paces and emotions and to stop remembers what happiness was. What it is. Because Louis is strong, sure, but only for so long before it is what it is._ _Before there are too many times Harry hears *I have a girlfriend* and *This is hard.* It takes nearly no time at all before it simply is too hard._ _Before Harry realizes that Louis has a girlfriend and Louis has a life and Louis has everything he thinks he wants, except himself. Except Harry and Harry’s version of Louis. Louis doesn’t have either of those anymore._

_It doesn’t take long for Harry to find no place for his boxes or his body or his home. Home. No time until it isn’t an accident or a ruse to stay at Ed’s place, to wake up on James’ couch. It doesn’t take long for Harry to stop screaming into a voicemail box full of other screaming messages from other people’s phones when he realizes that No One is picking up for him._

_It doesn’t take long until the crassness and dirty thoughts and angry lust to thin out against broken hearts and cheap accidents caused by rage and something else to. Not much longer to find himself on just the right side of the wrong bed that always belongs to Grimmy or summat. Grimmy isn’t afraid of Harry’s heartbreak, nurses it with stormy cocktails and stormy words about Harry’s former lover. It doesn’t take long for Harry to recognize that Louis is just his former lover._

_It takes maybe too much time, but just enough to save him before Ben to take mercy on him. He puts Harry up in the small butler’s flat over the garage at the Winstons’ London home. And Harry doesn’t cry on Meredith’s shoulder, and he doesn’t sneak shots of Ben’s gin after only asking for water for his tea three evenings straight. And they don’t look at him with pity or tell him how happy they are he’s there. That’s he’s family. That he’s loved. And this isn’t true and it isn’t real, but it’s a nice feeling Harry understands he probably needs. Deserves. And Harry has spent so many months and maybe years feeling unwanted and unnecessary and unable, so it’s okay when he does cry. It’s okay when Ed offers him a joint and a glass of wine, when Grimmy’s smooth cheeks leave rough remarks on his thighs._

_Circles, he thinks, new patterns. When he’s drunk and waiting on the curb with people he calls friends, crawling on all fours to roll cigarettes for them – circles, he thinks, new patterns. When he’s confident enough to let someone, Grimmy or Cara or his new friend Kendall-Kendall-Jenner steal a kiss – circles, he thinks, new patterns. Circles, he thinks. New patterns._

 

***

 

The invitation was still open, always had been. Jeff had been talking about it for weeks now, maybe longer. A week or so on the water, on a yacht they will all call a boat.

            “Celebrate your freedom, Hershel,” Jeff says and Harry realizes that, yeah, he does have something to celebrate. Harry made the decision to leave Modest on accident, though he doesn’t regret it. Jeff told him that he was moving to his own company, and Louis was moving to his own definition of family, and Harry was tired of standing still. Everyone moves on; Harry just moves backwards.

_Celebrate your freedom_ Jeff says, meaning _this is something to celebrate_ meaning _you can be free_ meaning _you need to know what freedom is_ meaning _do you know what freedom is_ meaning _do you want to know_ meaning _freedom is change_ meaning _I’ll force you to change_ meaning _I’ll force you to_ _celebrate the change_ so _celebrate the freedom_ meaning _we can_ _celebrate what’s permanent, too_. Celebrate.

            “Harry,” Jeff tries again, on a different phone call, another where Harry has been silent a beat too long. Harry can hear the inhale and exhale of the cigar, everything on the wrong side of too expensive, the far side of too much. Harry imagines him now just like the times before, sitting off somewhere pretending to work, pretending to be important. Harry’s learned that this world has much more pretend than the world he’s pretending not to run away from. Everyone pretends, and everyone plays, and everyone hopes that someone somewhere is genuine. Harry is almost convinced it could be him. He declines Jeff again.

 

            “Come on, H,” Glenne begs in what she says is her absolute last attempt, after he had hemmed and hawed his was through his a third conversation with Jeff. “Just us, babe – you and me and Jeff, and –”

            “Will Xander be there?” Harry asks, interrupting the guest list. As is the way with Harry, he thought their inevitable break-up had ended on better terms than it obviously had. Harry had stopped answering phone calls and text messages and sly tweets until Xander stopped calling. But Harry knows the man is bitter. It’s a common emotion, one he understands well. After all, all signs point to a broken heart. Harry understands what it’s like to have someone shatter expectations and then want to remain friends or nothing at all. This is something that he understands. It isn’t what he wanted for he and Xander, but Harry accepts the reality as fact. So, he wonders if Xander will be there, if they will be trapped on a yacht called a boat in the middle of the Caribbean sea with nothing between them but misplaced pleasantries.

            “No,” Glenne says, “he said he’d rather be on dry land, the loser. Besides, he has his family thing. You’ve been there before, remember?” Harry remembers. Last year, he’d kissed Xander as the fireworks started on X’s parents’ estate, ignoring the light that came from the man’s face and not the sky. Xander had buried his smile in Harry’s chest.

            “Harry, please come. We want you there.”

            _We want you there._ In the end, this is what sells him, what gets him to agree. It’s not that Harry thinks he’s spends too much time in places he isn’t wanted, but he is adult enough to recognize that the majority of his adult life, his presence has been merely an expectation. Those pesky shattered expectations.

 

So after Christmas, he packs a bag and stays an extra day in his mother’s house. He lets her fuss over him, remarking about the number of new tattoos he has, and the length of his hair. She is warmth and she is pride, and she is always, always mummy first. He wraps his arms around her from behind as the lights twinkle on Christmas Eve and it is everything he needs. He feels Anne’s body sag against him with something he cannot quite explain but can surely, surely feel. She turns in Harry’s arms and holds him right back, throws her arms around his neck and squeezes with all that her little body can. This is home. She leans back and takes Harry’s face in her hands, just looking, just watching for something only she could see. She places one hand in his hair and tugs on an errant curl, the other one still cupping his cheek. Harry cracks a lopsided grin at his mum and lets her pull him down and place a kiss on his forehead. He’s her baby, he is; he knows this, and it makes him proud. The two pull apart at the sound of someone tottering down the stairs. Harry doesn’t miss the woman wiping her eyes on a well-worn apron. This is love.

 

The next day, the Styles-Twist Clan pack a hired car and begin the trip to Heathrow. Everyone is along for the trip, even Gemma, who has the wedding to attend, someone Harry is sure he has known and been introduced to once and then maybe, probably, again. Such is the way of most of his relationships.

            Anne wears her Christmas present from Gemma, a shirt that clearly just tickles her. _“I Didn’t Know What to Wear Today”_ it reads, “ _So I Put On This Designer Knock-Off._ ” Harry knows it’s a well-meaning dig at him, but he hides his smile as she comes down the stairs cheekily dressed, her hair in the same messy bun she’d taught him to do. His dimples betray him.

            “Will I do?” she says cheekily as Robin runs behind her looking for a ‘blasted charger.’ But even he stops and smiles as his wife, crossing to her and giving her a kiss on the cheek that breaks Harry’s heart and gives him hope. He doesn’t want a wife, but he wants a kiss that looks and feels and settles like love, like home. He shakes his head and his heart, and laughs at his mum, standing proudly on the bottom stair, one hand on her hip, the other displaying her shirt proudly. Harry grabs a bag from the floor beneath her, yelling to Robin that he’s packed a spare charger. “Mr. Fashion is ready to go!” Anne shouts.

“ _What happened to the little boy,_ ” she had texted him, years ago when he’d worn his first daring outfit, the same one that led to a silly row with Louis later that night, “ _My little boy who only wore puppy pajamas and those cute little pants with superheroes on the bottom? Mr. Fashion now!_ ” Before, the epic and seemingly never-ending before, Harry had judged every outfit by what he thought Louis would like, by what Louis would say or hum or look twice at. The same trousers and blouse that caused his mother to label him _Mr. Fashion_ made Louis bristle, hide his insecurities behind half a smile, half a grin. “You look like a well tit, Haz,” he’d said, laughing as he left the room, making Harry look to the clothing rack and stylists with an apologetic shrug and a request for something a touch less feminine. But he let himself become strong and uninhibited, let himself grow his hair and his ability to wear trousers that shrink, shirts called blouses, let himself become someone who didn’t care that his comfort made Louis uncomfortable. Now, they send him labels that make his closet worth the same as the house he stands in, the house his mother is proud of, that his stepfather worked hard for. Now, he wears gold sparkly boots and ones with grey stripes and silver stars. Now, he’s still the person who doesn’t think he cares that his comfort makes others uncomfortable. Now, he’s Mr. Fashion and isn’t that a laugh to be had, as his sister pokes him in the side and his mother laughs and kisses his cheek. Now he sparkles and he throws the last bag in the boot and heads to the airport. Now he likes it.

 

He sees her from the corner of his eye and knows he’s been set up. That much is clear from the smirk Jeff hides behind his tumbler of scotch and the hopeful look on Glenne’s face. From the moment Harry sees Kendall-Kendall-Jenner, Harry knows he’s lost whatever ideas he had about a fun or easy or simple holiday.

            Kendall-Kendall-Jenner tears down the stairs in a little black romper of an outfit barely there, squealing madly and launching herself into Harry’s arms, wrapping her thin legs around his narrow waist.

            “Hazz-Head!” she shouts, “I’m so glad you’re here.”

            He catches her easily, hands supporting her effortlessly beneath her bum. He looks over his shoulder to see Jeff snorting and Glenne slapping his arm whilst she attempts, and fails to distract Harry’s very confused mother. He wants to glare, but really, what is the point? He likes this girl in black, he does, though there is rarely a moment where she isn’t a two-named entity. She is always in some way on. Kendall-Kendall-Jenner, not just Kendall. He likes her as a person, and even as she squirms in his arms a bit, Harry remembers the morning after they’d first slept together years ago. He’d awoken after her, and turned in the bed to watch her humming in the bathroom in just his large white t-shirt. She didn’t notice him watching her fix her teeth and wash her face. She’d passed gas and looked over, panicked, at the bed, but Harry closed his eyes just in time. As soon as the quiet humming started again, he chanced another look. She was frowning slightly in the mirror, searching his bathroom drawers for a hair tie. When she didn’t find one, she pulled out her purse. “Shit,” he heard her swear, rooting around. She gave up the search and squared her shoulders. She looked in the mirror again, and practiced her smile until Harry closed his eyes again, and drifted off to sleep. When he awoke the second time, she was tucked into his side and make-up free. He could see the light smattering of freckles on her cheeks, how her skin was soft and just this side of real. A Kendall, without the Jenner. He’d kissed her eyelid and then the other, woke her up with a simple smile. She looked up with nerves in her eyes.

            “I, uh,” she started, “I forgot my make-up bag at home.” Her voice was unusually quiet. She seemed all of nineteen and at that moment, that’s all he wanted. Now years later with her in his arms again, with her war paint and practiced smile in place and ready, Harry recognizes that there are worst people to be bamboozled into a false predicament with. He grins and jostles her for the reaction it brings about.

            “You look beautiful,” he says. Kendall-Kendall-Jenner squirms for a second more, then unhooks her legs from around Harry and stands on her own two feet. Harry leans over and gives her an easy kiss.

            “Good to see you, babe,” she says.

            Jeff whistles through his teeth and Glenne moves from his mother to the friend now back on the ground, grabbing Kendall-Kendall-Jenner’s hand and chattering away. Harry turns towards the bar where Robin stands, glass already extended. He knocks back a shot of something slightly sour. Anchors aweigh and all.

 

They decide on a simple dinner, and Jeff promises he didn’t tip anyone off. They get a day, a night before the charade commences. They get time together as friends, as two parts in this giant lopsided family not meant for cameras or speculation. Anne dons a pretty white dress, and both Harry and Kendall-Kendall-Jenner compliment her loveliness. They take two cars to the restaurant, and Harry opts to ride with his parents, though it’s clear, from Glenne’s confusion and Jeff’s dogged stares, that he isn’t following the unspoken plan. Harry doesn’t care. This is a circus he’s performed in before, a hoop with flames that sparks when he gets closer to it. He gets a day and gets a night. He wants to take it.

            Still, when they arrive at the open air room, Harry offers his hand to Kendall-Kendall-Jenner, and she takes it long enough to enter the restaurant and request an intimate table for six, eight once she counts the people even Harry forgot. As they head towards the table, Kendall-Kendall-Jenner uses the floor as a runway, one hand loose placed in the back pocket of Harry’s jeans. He lets her. The meal is raucous and fun, and Harry lets the girl hang off him, lets her flirt and flirts back. It’s good. Good enough. If his life from now until the end is just good and good enough, Harry promises himself between bites of blackened fish that he won’t complain. It isn’t bad, good enough. It just isn’t.

            Later, when they move together against the rocking of the boat, Harry tries not to think in terms of good and good enough. He tries to remember to like her smell, that her bony frame is attractive, and that all her protruding pieces are a necessary part of this. He is mostly slow and careful like she requests, and she is outlandishly loud and unnecessary like he opposes. It is the sign of the week ahead, he thinks, rolling them over so Kendall-Kendall-Jenner is on top. She will play this up, and he will never get to explain what this should mean, what it does. His mind wanders as she tries to circle her hips, and he’s reminded again of the paradox of sleeping with models. He misses the weight upon his thighs, resents the effort spent making it count, spent not trying not to wound, not to show. Kendall-Kendall-Jenner is thin, and she is reedy. She is everything the internet and the easier parts of his brain tell him he wants, and as she comes, again, he rolls over and drives into her, over and over again, chasing his own orgasm. It comes with flashes of someone he refuses to acknowledge, his eyes screwed up tight, her nails down his back. He crashes down next to her, breathing hard, one arm thrown over her stomach.

            “Glad we’re on the same page,” she whispers, and Harry laughs. It’s all he can do.

The week will pass with photos and quick fucks and hurried snogs, sweet kisses and congratulatory blow jobs cut short by newly invited guests. His mother will take a picture with other famous people, and Robin will talk cigars with Harry’s new manager. There will be large promises and larger obligations to fill. Harry knows this. He expects this. This is moving on. This is now. This is Mr. Fashion made good. Good enough.

 

Harry had turned his phone off after the first day. Shots surface of him trying to glimpse Snaps from the wedding Gemma was at whilst Kendall-Kendall-Jenner laid on him, and she was so upset he ate her out so that she wouldn’t cry. It hadn’t worked, and he’d declined dinner that night. As the plane touches down in gloomy London-town, he dodges a sneaky camera and turns his mobile back on. He’s flooded with alerts and messages, texts from Lou and messages from Grimmy and even a spare email from Modest. The pings and whistles follow him back to Holmes Chapel, and it isn’t until he’s in bed later that evening that he realizes that the good, good enough feeling faded when the flashes and sounds didn’t reveal the one person he didn’t know he wanted to hear from. Until they do. Before he drops to sleep, a final message comes in, its tone still unique.

            _Retaliation?_ the text reads.

            And only Louis could ask him in a way that made his heart ache and his skin catch fire.

            “Where are you?” Harry texts because he isn’t sure.

            “Doesn’t matter,” Louis sends, and the time-zones sync, and jet-lag be damned. Harry dials before he recognizes the consequences. It rings through, the voicemail picking up as Harry pushes his finger down, ending the mistake. Before the screen can go black, Louis’ face and name appear again, incoming. Harry answers and crawls out of bed; this feels too intimate a place to take the call.

            “’Lo,” he says, half sleep-drunk even though he feels wide awake and burned through.

            “Hiya, alright?” Louis asks.

            “Yeah, yeah. You?” Harry says.

            “Yeah, alright. Just –” Louis coughs into the microphone and it crackles and clouds Harry’s ear. The boy sounds thin and reedy, the way Kendall-Kendall-Jenner feels. But it isn’t a comparison Harry wants to make.

            “How’s the holiday?” Harry asks. Louis clears his throat.

            “Good, yeah. Oli found some sick bud, so…” Louis’ voice fades out, and Harry checks to see if the call is still connected.

            “Hello? Louis?” he calls.

            “I’m here, yeah, here” Louis says. “Only…you don’t care about me holiday, do you?”

            “Suppose not.”

            “Why’d you ask then?” Louis asks, and it’s clear, in the dark and vibrating night that this phone call with no purpose was a mistake. But everything with Louis is.

            “Just being polite, mate.”

            “’S why you called?”

            “Is it why you answered?” Harry asks. Louis pauses, and Harry counts his breaths. He wishes he was drunk. He wishes they were both drunk instead of just tired.

            “I asked you a question, didn’t I? Never answered,” Louis says.

            “Which one?”

            “About why you went to – was it just – ‘cause of me and shit?”

            And it takes a moment for Harry to remember, to recall the text that made him call Louis in the first place. It wasn’t. Harry knows the week on the seas was about him and him alone, what he needed, what he is becoming. And, sure, it was a scheme, but not retaliation for dog walks in Chicago parks or ice cream sundaes shared with a girl who looks like the girl who wreaked havoc upon Harry’s life once. This girl in bars and tattoo parlous, this little and somehow disgusting, rancid thing with poor clothing decisions, she looked younger and more maliciously inclined. Perhaps Harry knew more about her than he meant. Perhaps he liked her less than was fair. Perhaps. And maybe it would’ve been easy to turn his perhaps into not-so-righteous indignation into a pre-meditated type of pain disguised as retaliation. He’d like to hurt Louis sometimes too. In his childhood bed with faded stars upon the ceiling, Harry realizes that to a wounded heart, his adventure could be seen as brash, as bad. As not good, or not good enough.

            “I thought you were ignoring me,” Harry says instead, “I thought we weren’t talking anymore. You were mad at me.”

            Louis pauses again, and Harry thinks maybe he’s won this round, that it’s over for now. Until Louis breathes in his ear, again.

            “Most of the time,” Louis says, and Harry can hear him picking at the pocket of his assumed joggers, “Most of the time, I weren’t too mad at you really. Just… just really scared of losing you.”

            It’s honest in a way that never really is with Louis. It’s another sign and another piece to the pass that leads to the truth Harry’s spent too much time and energy running from. Because Harry loves Louis. And that shouldn’t be how the saying goes, how it ends. In the beats between breaths, Harry can almost think that maybe it isn’t.

            Harry doesn’t sigh. He rolls over, stares at the wall that held pictures at one point. All that’s left are the faded squares of the pretend presence of former memories.

            “How’d that work out for you, Louis?” Harry says. _Not being mad, not losing me, being afraid and scared and frightened and all of the above about all of the above and everything to come. How’d that work out?_

            “Same way it worked out for you, Harold,” Louis replies.

            “You’ve got a girlfriend, remember.”

            “I’ve got a girlfriend,” he says. _I’ve got a girlfriend_ and _this is hard_

            “I know,” Harry says. “Why’re calling me?”

            “Maybe we’re talking now,” Louis says, and it doesn’t make sense, not really. HarryandLouis don’t talk. Harry and Louis don’t talk either. That much has always been clear. Words make things worse, and emotions are for people who can’t afford the façade they live under. But Harry’s stupid, and Harry’s alone in Holmes Chapel, and the place where he almost fell in love with the boy is right up the road.

            “I’m gonna—” Harry starts, but Louis cuts him off.

            “I don’t know, alright, I don’t know.”

            “You never know, Lou.”

            “I—”

            “You should – we should go, yeah? You’ve got a girlfriend.”

            “I’ve still got you,” Louis whispers.

            Harry thinks it should hurt to hear. He wants it to. Harry wants to hear it and for it to break him like it did this summer, like it did this fall. Harry wants to hear it and think about the first time and the last time and the other times, every time, every time with Louis. Harry wants it to hurt.

            But he’s tired now. And he’s okay with good and good enough. He’s not sure he’s searching for things to fill the holes anymore. Harry’s not sure there are holes anymore. He’s not quite sure of the reason, maybe time with his mother and more time playing pretend, but as he hears Louis’ words echo in the quiet, Harry’s fine. He goes to speak, but he doesn’t have words to say. He hangs up and leaves his mobile lying on the carpeted floor. He climbs back into bed and bunkers down, closes his eyes and goes straight to sleep. He dreams no dreams, wakes to the knock on the door from his mum, asking for his washing and promising a full English once he’s clean. He spends the day forgetting about the night until Gemma rings the house looking for him, seeking his opinion on the pictures she’d emailed him. And he promises to check and heads up the stairs and fishes the phone from right under the bed where he didn’t even know he’d kicked it. Three texts, that’s all.

_Okay._

_I’m sorry._

_I’ve still got you._

Harry deletes them all before calling his sister back.

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

Harry is never quite full of Louis. At any time really. When they have sex, or when Louis looks at him alone or in a crowded room, on stage with more people than his old nerves could say, he’s never quite had his fill. And it’s not a slight on Louis’ size, not something he’s ever thought to put into words. He’s just never quite full of Louis.

 

Chapter 10

 

_It’s hard to forget the things you know about a person. Hard to remember. It startled out of Harry one evening, while he was sitting at a trivia night at Will’s local pub. He’s been sitting there and drinking bitters with a crew full of people he wasn’t quite sure he’s a part of anymore, and he can’t remember how or why he was invited. It’s been a while though, and he needed a break from the new world he knew, the one with too much music and too many looks across an empty room or full stage. It’s been long enough, a year or so, or maybe even more, since his name has existed as its own entity. No more Harryand. No more Harry and. Just Harry now. And that’s okay. Anyway, Will had called the way old friends to when they’re close enough to feel a bit bad about ignoring a friend just up the road, even if it’s for a time. His mother encouraged to go, and when he called the Winstons to delay his return from Holmes Chapel, he could hear the pride in Ben’s voice, Meredith shouting praise for doing things that make him happy. And it was better than the bottle or a bath. So he’s there and Harry can’t tell if he’s wanted or not, but it’s been a while. And sometimes that’s as good of an excuse as any._

_Harry’s sitting there and the guy at the microphone was drunker than he was, and called out questions that shouldn’t be pub fare._ _Maths_ _problems and political questions that go too far over the head of the drunken patrons. The man asked twenty questions, but then someone alerted him to Harry’s presence, and then there was a final round, a winner-take-all that’s all about One Direction. And his team was both elated and uncomfortable because they could win three free bar tabs on off-peak nights, but Harry spent the last two hours doing his best to make them all forget he was anything but the cheeky kid who’s Will’s best mate from primary days, just a normal lad-boy-man with a scarf in his curly brown hair. But the game continued and the new round began, and he gets the questions right and the questions wrong. Dates he’s horrible with, but names and faces he does okay. Then they ask how many siblings Louis William Tomlinson has, and for the life of him, Harry can’t remember. Maybe he has a brother. Maybe it’s still little sisters and the one that followed along to stay out of trouble and ended up making it on her own. Or the one who’s in boarding school who really has sass mixed with intelligence and not just an attitude problem, and how on earth could his mum afford a school in London, or the horses and dressage for the other two? That’s four. Time was running out, and he had four, and then Harry suddenly remembered the off-peak wedding Louis’ mum had, and how she touted him around and called him her ‘son-in-law, making sure he knew it was a joke, making sure he knew she didn’t want that from him. Eleanor looked beautiful that day. Seven kids, six siblings. One brother. How could Harry forget? He just didn’t remember._

_They won by one question._

***

 

Harry is in LA when the baby is born. He doesn’t mean to be, but Jeff bullies him into a family gathering, and with the new business, he and Glenne are having relationship problems, and Harry wants to be there for her, for both of them. Anyway, Harry doesn’t mean to be in LA when the baby is born. He would’ve forgotten the due date, tried to forget it, but news outlets and update accounts keep a minute-by-minute watch of the girl’s final weeks of pregnancy. It’s like he can’t escape it. Not that he didn’t try.

They haven’t announced what they’re having, but Harry knows, Harry believes it’ll be a girl. Anna Johannah May. When they were together, when they were truly together, he and Louis would joke about naming their daughter after their mothers, laughing at the cadence. Over half-empty bottles of wine and empty bottles of stout, Harry with stars in his eyes would drabble about a sweet girl with ringlets and curls and soft blue or green eyes. A girl named Anna Johannah with a May on the end. Louis would let him. Louis would boast next, talk of a bouncing baby boy, a Thomas. Thomas Tomlinson. Louis got such a kick out of Tommy the Tommo that Harry would laugh and laugh, shaking his head at this boy he was so proudly fond of, proud of. He would’ve hated the alliteration, but for Louis, he would’ve done it. Thomas James Tomlinson. Anna Johannah May.

He gets a call from his old management and a text from Gemma, who’s somehow heard before Harry’s set the phone down. Maybe through Lottie on vacation round the world. She’s too young to do that, Harry thinks, not for the first time. She’s too young for all she’s done and is doing. Then again, so is he.

            _You alright?_ Gemma’s message reads. Its time stamp matches the email from Modest sent after the phone call, asking again, bullying and begging him not to tweet, not to open his mouth in any capacity. It feels familiar and foreign in a break. The break. But they aren’t in charge of him anymore. Harry doesn’t delete the email though, doesn’t forward it to Jeff. Instead, he scrolls back to his sister’s text. Gemma’s sent another message, a boy and girl emoji, a green heart, a spider, and an aubergine. And then a little airplane with a question mark.

            “Yeah, course,” he replies, with emojis of babies and smiley faces that no one could believe, not even her.

 

He’s tempted to call someone to wait it out. He hears down the grapevine that Liam might be on his way over, will be the godfather over Stan and Calvin and even Oli. It seems fitting, full circle. Harry thinks about texting Liam, but knows it doesn’t really matter. Liam will come when he comes, and he will see Harry if he wants to, if Harry wants to. The thing is they don’t always want to. But it’s better now, really. Maybe. It’s good enough. Harry thinks of changing the sheets and making up the guest room just in case; but he knows that if Liam does come, he won’t care. After years of hotel rooms and pristine service, there is something to be said about a home, wrinkled sheets that are just a little worn. After debating over a cup of tea, his mother’s manners and his own slightly Northern sensibilities win out and he trudges up the stairs to the airing cupboard. When he gets to the empty guest room, he doesn’t think of the times that he christened it, along with every other room in the house, the times that Louis would burrow into this room that wasn’t his, wasn’t even Harry’s. How he’d burrow into Harry’s room as well. Burrow in well. He doesn’t think of the guests that have paraded through his own bedrooms, the ones who never quite fit, who wouldn’t spill food and didn’t laugh hard enough at his jokes; the people who remain guests forever. He changes the sheets and falls asleep atop the freshly made bed.

 

Harry wakes up to his phone ringing. He thought he’d left it downstairs, and for a blinding, panicked moment, he thinks it could be Louis calling to announce the birth of his child. Louis doesn’t owe him that though, Harry thinks. Harry isn’t owed. Despite the recent uptick and the never-ending struggle to sort out truths and tragedies, the natural pendulum swing of their relationship remains a constant. Louis doesn’t owe him a little bit or anything at all.

            Instead, it is his mother calling. He counts the eight hours and realizes that she should be asleep.

            “Hello,” he says roughly, still out of sorts from sleep and slight panic.

            “Hiya chick,” Anne says, and her voice feels like home.

            “Hi.”

            “Jay rang me, texted really.”

            “Is she here yet?” Harry asks. Anna Johannah May.

            “No, not yet,” she clears her throat. “Apparently the girl changed her mind about having a C-section. They were going round and round apparently.”

            “Round and round about having one or round and round about not?”

            “You know, I’m not quite sure, love. In any case, she’s having one now. But there’s a line or some bother. I wasn’t paying enough attention to the message to be fair.”

            “Aye, it’s early there.”

            “Yeah,” Anne says. In the silence that follows, it isn’t clear what she was to say, except it is. Five years of pain and picking up the pieces and trying to decide what support looks like. That silence has a sound. Her hesitancy and determination are both present and at odds with one another, and Harry’s waiting for the draw of breath, waiting for her to begin again.

            “Harry –”

            “Mum,” he interrupts, sitting up and looking at the old duvet still piled on the floor, “just, just I know, alright?”

            “It’s not just you, anymore, Harry. You need to make up your mind and decide –”

            “Decide what? It’s not my kid, is it?”

            “He’s still your Louis,” she says, and Harry snorts. “You get to decide what happens next.”

            And she says it like it’s always been his choice, like he is the one with the power. Harry loves Louis. That has always been clear. That’s not a secret that the darkness hides or a triumph that the light reveals. Harry loves Louis. And Louis knows it and Anne knows it and Harry does too, sadly. That’s the constant, but one he’s tried to let go of. It’s only taken nine months or so. And, Harry thinks, five years should be five years too many for his mother to pick him up off the ground again and again and, again. Yet here in the apex, his mother is telling him different. That maybe he’s not supposed to let go. And doesn’t that make no sense. He doesn’t understand what she wants from him, how true love and all of its lies have won out in Anne’s version of his slightly epic story. But it seemingly has.

            Still, Harry thinks it’s time to stand firm on shaky ground. “He’s not anymore to me anymore, Mum.”

            “Jay said –”

            “Said what?” Harry interrupts again. There were few people happier than Jay when he and Louis split. There are moments that the years have forgotten, but more often that Harry cares to admit, he finds himself back in the hall of a flat he once shared, hearing about what good men do. He’s never told Jay that he heard her tell Louis he was in love with him. He never told Louis. He never told Jay that her son was capable of more with his feet on the ground than on the pedestal she created and she controlled. He’s never told Louis anything. The woman has married three times (for the romance, she says, for the romance indeed), and has been outward proud and privately shrewd. And Louis is his mother’s son. So Harry is the same. Jay always says she loves Harry, but she loves One Direction more. Maybe more than Louis alone. He is her greatest accomplishment after all, and she wanted all that was worth.

            Anne sighs and Harry feels it in his bones.

            “She just asked after you, love. It was very polite.”

            “It’s not my kid, Mum.” They’ve deviated too far from the point, Harry thinks, and the end is still the end.

            “And it doesn’t have to be. I’m not saying it does.”

            “He probably doesn’t even want—”

            And Anne hums over anything Harry could’ve said to finish his sentence.

            “It can be okay, love.” She isn’t about to buck him up or tell him to move on and up and stiff upper lip or anything of the sort. She loves him too much for that.

            “Mum,” he tries, but Anne cuts him off.

            “No, you don’t. It’s my turn now, Mr. Fashion. I’m your mother and that counts for something, sir.”

            Harry’s heart squeezes. “I know. I’m sorry. I love you. I do.”

            “I know and I love you. And you love him, that’s all. And you always have.”

            “Yeah.”

            “Whether he’s earned it or not, you always have.” It’s the closest she’s ever gotten to saying that he was better than Louis.

            Anne keeps talking and keeps speaking and Harry listens, but all he can hear is the words about love. And it was all about love.

Because Harry loves Louis.

            It’s hard to forget a thing like that. Hard to recognize and categorized with scheduled dates and penciled reminders. Harry loves Louis. But Louis doesn’t love Harry. Or. Rather. Louis doesn’t love Harry right.

            It’s not the first time he’s thought this nor is it the first time he’s heard about love and how it conquers and how it’s equal, how it’s returned. But it doesn’t matter. Because Louis doesn’t love Harry. Louis doesn’t love Harry right. It is the same thing now as it was the same thing then. There are no more first and no more new truths in their story, Harry thinks. Save one. Save the one entering the world far too soon for Harry’s heart and Harry’s head and Harry’s harried sense of justice and pain and buried emotions.

            It’s been silent for a minute or two, like his mother knows he isn’t listening yet is loving him all the same. For she is still there, still breathing out through the phone quiet and even and sure and with love, in a pattern that can be translated into any language. _I hope you do not suffer_.

 

Day turns into night, and Harry wonders if his mum got the facts wrong because there is still no word. He’d turned his phone on silent after Anne rang off, traipsing to his back garden for a beer. He sits on the patio overlooking his garden and pool, wondering how he could do such a thing in January. Money and opportunity, he thinks. The silence is too much and too long, so he pulls his phone from the table and checks it for updates. His phone is littered with unanswered messages from Liam, tired but excited by the incoming new member of their tiny but oh-so utterly, utterly broken family. Liam has enough going on in his own life, Harry thinks, with secret relationships and his own turn at the solo thing. But yet here he is, four or so in the morning in London, ferrying messages and progress from Jay and Dan and attempts to distract Harry with news from home. Liam deserves more than Louis for a leader, Harry thinks; Liam deserves more than Harry for a friend.

            He starts chatting with his bandmate, asking about Cheryl, who’s wicked, his music, which is unfinished. Liam’s trying his hand at the day-to-day at Louis’ pretend, shamble of a record label, and spends his days in meetings Harry thinks he would’ve outgrown by now.

            “No,” Liam sends in a WhatsApp voice note, “‘Cause like I get it now. Harder on this side of the desk, mind.”

            And Harry wants to ask if they have any acts, and how he and Louis are treating them, but he doesn’t really care and is certain that it will all be fine. Still, Harry lets Liam continue to ramble on, chuckling at the screen.

            “How’s Ni? You heard from him lately?” Harry sends.

            Instantly, Harry can imagine the sleep-addled frown upon Liam’s face, the shake of his head. Liam frowns in a way that always reminds Harry of that fragile little boy at seventeen, tough as nails yet scared of everything from his shadow and spoons and snakes and the shape of his own thoughts.

            “You can ask him yourself you know” Liam’s response reads.

            Harry does know. There was no one who took the break with as much relief as Niall. Through the others’ drugs and his own deteriorating relationship with Zayn, through every fight between the band and management, between the band itself, Niall was worn down. In the end, he was only too happy to walk away, even if it was only for a supposed time. Throughout it all, Niall remained stubbornly at Harry’s side, even when he didn’t believe in him, even when it cost him in the end. Now, it is too much for Harry to comprehend; and anyway, how can he say communicate with someone who isn’t just a friend? How does he exchange pleasantries with a brother after the trenches, after he’s stood in the muck and shame and shit and fuck – how does he? When promo ended, they’d gone their separate ways and Harry honored Niall’s unspoken request to be left the hell alone. They speak from time to time, but when everything is done and gone, there is nothing left to say. Niall deserves more than Louis for an equal; he deserves more than Harry for a friend.

            Harry sends Niall a message and tells Liam he’s going to bed. No baby tonight.

 

The baby comes January 21st at 18:23PM. Six pounds, two ounces and:

            “A boy.”

In the end, Louis calls, out of breath and shaky from just down the road. Harry sends a message to his mother.

            “He’s beautiful, Haz,” Louis says, almost in a whisper. Harry can hear the happy chatter in the background, Louis’ reverent voice thick with tears, and the clear, crisp accent of the other grandmother. “So beautiful and tiny, innit?”

            “I bet. Good genes and all,” Harry manages. “Mum alright?”

            “Yeah,” Louis clears his throat and breathes. “Yeah, she’s fine. Everyone here is –”

            Louis stops and breathes into the phone. _Everyone here_ meaning _Everyone who came_ meaning _Everyone who could come_ meaning _You could come_ meaning _You should come_ meaning _You should and you could but you wouldn’t_ meaning _Everyone here is fine_.

            “I’d forgotten how tiny they are, babies. He’s just so small, Harry.”

            “Don’t break him,” Harry quips and Louis laughs because that’s what he does when he is happy. And isn’t this a time to be happy? Harry wipes his eyes.

            “Alright, lad, how many fingers, how many toes? Eyes and all?” Harry asks because that’s what good people do.

            “Ten owt. He has a, like a birthmark or sommat, near his elbow. Looks like a potato.”

            “Niall’ be well pleased. Irish showing through.”

            And Louis laughs again. “Yeah, yeah he will.” Through all the emotion, Harry can sense Louis’ great pride. This is an accomplishment he’d make stick, no matter what.

            “Me nose and eyes. Blue like mine. Hair’s like his mum’s maybe, don’t know. Fine but it’s there.”

            “Give him time, it’ll come through right. Might change with the light,” Harry says.

            “Yeah, maybe.”

            “Congratulations, Dad,” Harry says in a clear and low voice. It’s the voice, the phrase he’s practiced in the dark, when no one was there to hear him be polite.

            “Thanks. It’s, I…” Louis breathes deep. “Thanks, mate.”

            They hang up, and Harry turns off his phone.

            He opens the drawer to his bedside table opposite his side of the bed, feels for the flask Louis left there once, the one that’s never truly empty. His fingers curl around it, and he pulls it from the drawer, takes a whiff. It’s scotch, the good kind, and Harry wishes fleetingly that he had a bottle. “Congratulations, Dad” he whispers into the loneliness. Congratulations into the night. It isn’t until later, when the flask is empty and the sky is now light and Harry is still awake, it isn’t until then that Harry realizes he never asked the little lad’s name.

 

Freddie Reign Tomlinson. Louis tweets a picture, and the mum posts to Instagram, and that’s that, Harry thinks, that’s settled. The Tumblrs and Twitters shoot up within minutes, and over the days, the pics and manips and baby-talk tweets multiply. The Larries mourn, and the antis are triumphant, and in his mind, he wishes the former nothing but the best.

            He can’t decide how he feels about the name. It is simple in a way he likes, in a way he understands. It’s a name for a lad. A nickname with nothing to stand for. Like Harry. Maybe he likes the name or hates it. Maybe. Maybe it’s everything else that comes with it. But the boy is beautiful and tiny and fierce, and Harry doesn’t love him; he doesn’t, he swears. Harry can only hope and think or none of the above that little Freddie long-may-he-Reign is loved. That he is everything he was supposed to be.

 

The days go by. One turns into two turns into a week turns into another, and Harry is still trapped. He can’t leave LA without sending a message, but staying is conjuring conspiracy theories and images and stories of him changing diapers and waiting at the little lad’s – at Freddie, long-may-he-Reign’s bassinet.

He wants a part of this that nobody can have, his own feelings that no one else could ever feel. He wants a lot, but he can’t get it, and he can’t take it with him, so he stays. So he stays, and he lives. He gets papped buying groceries and frozen yogurt, takes pictures with fans who think it’s brave he’s changed management and wonderful he’s in a movie. They ask excitedly and shyly and boldly and foolishly about the baby. “He’s a cute one,” he says, and then he turns to the camera, sometimes smiling, oftentimes not. It is his lot in life, and still Harry stays, and then stays some more.

            He quietly tries to pick up with Xander again. This time Xander knows, right from the beginning what this is, all it is going to be. So Xander never pushes, never sleeps over or sleeps at all, and as the weeks turn again into another and another and into three more, Harry can see the other man let go of any desires he ever held out a future. They just are, they just exist, and that’s not always enough.

            “Let’s just stay friends,” Xander says one night after dinner, and Harry agrees, not nearly as relieved as he’s sure his face shows.

 

Liam doesn’t come, and neither does Niall. Jay leaves, remembering the rest of her family that she so often seems to forget. How hard it must be, Harry thinks, not to be the favorite.

            Anyway, suddenly Harry realizes it is just him and just Louis and just her and her and just the baby left in LA. And he’s always been trapped, but maybe not, and there are too many pictures preserving his slow dissent into something other than madness.

            It’s Gemma who makes the private final call.

            “Just come home, you dolt,” she says over the quiet crinkle of a cigarette he pretends he can’t hear. What she doesn’t say was what he knows she wants to. _He’s not yours. He’s not coming back. And isn’t this vigil all a bit sad?_ “Just come home,” she says instead, and so he packs a bag and sends a tweet and heads to England.

            He lasts three days, almost four. Compared to L.A., his London home feels cold and cramped. He’d blown away the cobwebs and sent a cleaner in before he arrived, the only person save Gemma he’s told he’s there. They get gloriously drunk one night, and he breaks down over nothing, sobs into her soft hair because he can, because wine makes him weepy, and he’s allowed to be, given the circumstances. He’s home, but he’s not, and he knows that and maybe so does Gemma. No one knows he’s gone, and he’s back in L.A. before he’s missing. He’s papped the day after landing, and everyone is shocked and relieved.

 


	11. Chapter 11

 

 

A ship docked is better than a ship moored. Love exists, of this we can be sure. But love exists on its own terms and turns. And those in love are human and hurting. Those in love are broken and fragile and lost. But they are in love. They are in love. So do not be afraid. Do not be hostile or hateful or hurtful. Do not fear. Be patient and be still. Be quietly undeterred. Be brave. Because love exists. Of this we can be sure. And love always fights and love always hopes and love always wins. Love always wins. Always. A ship docked is better than a ship moored.

 

Chapter 11

 

Here is the truth:

Once, two boys met. And they fell in love.

Once, two boys were in love but didn’t know what that meant. And it was trying.

Once, two boys tried and it wasn’t enough. And it hurt.

Once, two boys were hurt and fell apart. And it was what it was.

Once, two boys met and fell in love and fell apart.

But that is not the end of their story.

 

***

 

So it all comes to this:

 

Harry answers the door one day. It’s who he should’ve expected.

 

Louis looks like the Louis of Harry’s old dreams about the future, unkempt with a purpose. Joggers and a messy pullover, hair dirty in the best and worst and terrible ways. Louis looks haggard and worn and sure. Louis looks like the Louis of Harry’s old dreams, with a lovely, love, heartbreaking sort of purpose, sleeping and swaddled in a blue blanket in a black and tan carrier. And all Harry can think is _unfair_ and _unfair_ and _unfair._ _Very unfair_. Meaning that. Meaning just that.

            “Hiya,” the boy outside says, “Alright?”

            “What are you doing here?” Harry says.

            And then “Hi.” Hi.

            Louis turns and looks behind him and Harry sees the spot on his neck where the baby gums. He stamps his feet and tries not to jostle the little one.

            “You gonna let me in?” Louis says, “A right story, me on your doorstep.”

            Harry opens the door fully and moves back a bit, allowing the other boy in.

            “Help us out, Haz?” Louis asks, holding out the baby. Harry notices the baby bag on Louis’ back, scuffed and lovely with use, a familiar black sports bag at his feet. Harry bends to pick up the bag from the ground, shoulders it as he wanders into the living room.

            Louis makes his way into the sitting room and places the baby carrier on the coffee table, tossing his bag next to the couch. Harry holds the other one in his hand. Louis plops down as if this is a place that he is welcome, not in the secret and old places of Harry’s heart, but in the dimming light that cascades through the windows.

            “Why are you here?” Harry asks again.

            “Could do with a beer,” Louis answers.

            “You have a baby,” Harry replies.

            “It’s not for him, is it?”

            Harry heads into the kitchen, leaving the other bag by a barstool as he crosses to the refrigerator. He opens it and surveys the drink options; there’s a Corona hidden in the back and an uncut lime he knows Louis won’t use. He brings both back into the other room anyway. Louis is lying on the couch now, one foot dangling off. His head is tipped back, his tattooed arm covering his eyes. Harry can spot the compass pointing towards home which points towards nothing it seems, nothing at all.

            “I thought you wanted a beer,” Harry says.

            “Did, but you were right. Since I’ve got Fred and owt,” Louis responds, unmoving from his position. Harry places the beer and the lime on the table next to the baby, stepping over Louis’ pullover in the middle of the floor. Not yet ten minutes and the lad has spread like it’s his place to keep and ruin and claim. Harry sits in a chair in front of the telly he muted before answering the door. He lets it play for a minute more before switching it off. From the table, Freddie whimpers a bit, awake now. Louis sits up and peers into the carrier. He locates the tiny dummy from near his son’s thigh and places it in his sweet small mouth. The sounds stop but Louis makes a silly face anyway.

            “Do they know you’ve taken him?” Harry asks.

            “He’s mine, innit? I’m allowed.”

            “Does anybody know you’re here?”

            “You,” Louis says, and if it was four years ago, Harry would’ve thought it was clever. Now it just seems sad.

            “I don’t know why you’re here.”

            “Sure you do, mate,” Louis says.

            “Louis—” Harry starts, but Louis is cuts him quick.

            “Been trying for a while now, yeah? If you think about it. Always trying to – it’s – I’m here now.”

            Harry wants to shout _When did you ever try?_ _When we were broken? When we couldn’t be fixed?_ Because yes, Louis tries. He tries in the dark and in the bottle and in the moments where Harry thinks that he can be okay. When he wants to make it. But Louis never seems to try when it’s easy. This could be June in summertime London. It could be an empty hotel room and ignored knocks and unanswered phone calls. It could be anywhere, but it’s here and it is now. Louis is here, and Harry isn’t fine. He isn’t good or good enough. There isn’t anywhere else for them to be.

            The baby whimpers and cries again and Louis picks him up. He checks his nappy and looks around for the backpack. Harry points next to the couch, and Louis grabs it, and Harry feels like he’s a part of a team.

            “Gonna change him,” Louis says, moving before Harry can respond. Harry slouches down in the chair and watches Louis walk carefully up the stairs. Harry sits in the silence. It’s a quick trip; Louis returns just a few minutes later. He doesn’t put Freddie back into the carrier, just leans back into the couch, curling around his son.

            “What’re you here for?” Harry asks because it’s the only thing he can say.

            “You know why,”

            “Louis—”

            “We’re gonna be honest, Harry,” Louis says. “We’re just gonna say the truth.”

            The truth is that there are things Harry doesn’t want to share. There are things that Harry wants to hold onto. Like being the victim, like feeling wronged. Harry knows he’s spent his too long playing the victim to Louis’ villain. The one who cries, the one who is lied to. The one without a steady relationship, the one with rumors and slander. The one who changed. And that’s true; yes, that’s the truth, and Harry knows it. But he also knows that he hasn’t cried alone. And every _I’m fine_ and _Good, good enough_ was a lie to himself and to the other boy. There have been other rumors and different slander and for every steady relationship, there’s been an ever-present ache Harry has trained himself not to see upon Louis’ face. The truth is that every victim has a villain. But Louis is here. And Louis isn’t the villain. That’s the truth. Parts of it anyway.

            “Okay,” Harry says and Louis breathes deep, the baby rising and falling on his chest.

            “I miss you.”

            “I don’t know what that means anymore.”

            “I’m here, aren’t I?” Louis says.

            “I don’t know what that means either.”

            The sun is just beginning to dip towards the horizon line, and Harry stands up instead of waiting for Louis to try again. He pops his back and turns on the lamps and lights a candle to chase away the silence.

            “I’ll be here forever if we never start,” Louis says as Harry moves into the kitchen to make tea. He brings Louis a bottle of water while the kettle boils.

            “For the baby,” he says, “you can make him a bottle with this. He’s probably hungry.”

            Louis looks up and takes it. He grabs the water and then the formula from his bag and makes the bottle. He does it all by himself, and Harry watches and pretends it isn’t his dream deferred. He goes back to the kitchen as the kettle clicks off, and brings steeping tea back into the sitting room when he left the boy. The boys.

            “Are you gonna say anything, Haz?” he asks.

            “What time is’t?” Harry says and Louis grunts.

            Freddie stops sucking on his bottle, and the moment rests while Louis continues to be someone’s father alone. He rubs the baby’s back, patting softly and then harder still, trying to push unwanted air out, trying to make the pressure and the jostling and the unrecognizable noises worth it. Harry understands the feeling. Harry tries not to watch, flicks the television on and then off again, grabs his mobile to see there are no messages to distract him from the truth in his living room. Louis just pats and rubs and absorbs the silence. Freddie spits up a bit, and Louis wipes it on the bottom of his shirt. He slowly starts up the stairs again, holding the baby with one arm and the backpack baby bag in the other. Louis waits until he’s almost out of sight to speak.

            “Just – try.”

            _Try_. The truth is that Louis has tried and Harry has tried, too. He tries to speak, and he tries to listen. Harry tries to move on and Louis tries to be happy. They try to love and that never works. But all they do is try. Harry doesn’t just want to try anymore. It’s all they’ve ever done. It’s all they ever do. Harry watches Louis come back without the baby. Louis stops at the bottom of the stairs, hovering near the wall with his hands in his pocket.

            “You left him upstairs?” Harry asks.

            “Yeah, past his bedtime, young tuck” Louis says.

            “He go down okay?”

            “Yeah. I’m uh, I’m used to it now,” Louis says, “got the hang of it.” And doesn’t that just break Harry’s heart. Again. The two watch each other for a moment, and Harry wonders if Louis remembers what he said before he walked upstairs, away again from Harry, like every time before. _Try_ meaning _Just try_ meaning _Fail_ meaning _Just fail_ meaning _How do we do anything other than try?_ They always try and Louis always walks away and Harry always runs, and they never seem to be going towards each other until they are, until they do. Until now and moments like this and this is all very new, and not. Not at all. Harry moves to pick up the remote control again, but Louis stops him with his voice.

            “Haz –”

            “I don’t want to try,” Harry says.

            “Can we talk?” Louis says.

            “You’re already here, aren’t you?”

            “Yeah.”

            “What do you want to say?” Harry asks.

            “I’m sorry.”

            “Why are you doing this now?” Harry asks because Louis is here now, and he doesn’t know if there will be a next time. And he isn’t sure if he wants there to be or if this is it. _This is us_ , Harry thinks, _broken and here and now. Why are you doing this now?_

            “‘S time, I guess,” Louis says and he looks unsure, and scared.

            “Why not before?”

            “I tried before.”

            “When?”

            “When I always fuck up,” Louis says.

            “I don’t understand this,” Harry says. “I don’t understand what you want from me.”

            “I just needed to say sorry.”

            “You’ve said that before.”

            “When?” Louis asks, and Harry shrugs.

            “All the other times,” he says.

            Louis sinks down the wall and looks confused. His arse meets the floor, and he spreads his legs like an invitation.

            “Are,” he begins, clearing his throat, “Are you okay?”

            And Harry doesn’t know the answer to that other than his isn’t a victim, and Louis isn’t the villain, and they need a new truth. They’ve been dancing with the devil too long, and it’s time for the song to end.

            “You’re here,” Harry says. Louis doesn’t say anything to that.

            “Tell me the truth,” Harry tries.

            “What’s the question?” Louis asks.

            “Why are you here?”

            “You know why.”

            “So tell me the truth,” Harry says again.

            “What truth?” _And here it is, now._

            “That there will always be someone else. That there will always be a girl and the boys and million other things instead of – whatever this is.”

            “There will always be you,” Louis says. And it isn’t enough.

            “Liar.”

            “It’s all I’ve got.”

            “So I’m supposed to just, what?” Harry says.

            “Just be with me,” Louis says, but it still isn’t enough. Harry groans from the chair; he sits up and tries to stand, tries to pace, but he’s too tired. Everything is tired.

            This conversation feels wrong, and it feels too serious, and Harry thinks it’s too much for the two of them, these people, for the life upstairs, unaware that his father is changing his history before he’s old enough to have one yet. But Harry isn’t a victim, and Louis isn’t a villain. They’re just people who fell in love and fell apart, and Harry doesn’t know if there’s anything else. This is the first. This is the last. Harry doesn’t realize he’s crying until he feels Louis’ hand on his cheek. The lad is sitting at Harry’s feet now, elbows on Harry’s thighs and forehead pressed against his own. This is what the darkness should never reveal. This is what the truth shouldn’t look like. This is what Harry never wanted to want again. He’s sobbing now because of course he is, and Louis is crying too. A right mess they are, untethered and changed and broken and ruined and hurt and lost. There shouldn’t be anything left. Yet here they are, and Harry doesn’t know if this is home.

            “When is it my chance to decide?” Harry says.

            “It always is,” Louis replies.

            “No, no, no!” Harry says, “I never, this isn’t – I don’t get to –”

            Louis pulls Harry from the chair onto the floor and they smother each other. Harry lays on Louis’ chest like it’s salvation, like it’s going to make him all better. But it won’t. He had to do that all on his own.

            “I don’t want to follow you anymore.”

            “I know.”

            “I don’t,” Harry says and anything else he wanted is quiet now because Louis kisses him. Of course. Harry pulls back, and it’s Louis who follows, Louis whose tears taste of regret and unshed shame and heartbreak.

            “Don’t,” he says and _don’t_ meaning _please_ meaning _now,_ and suddenly it’s all be leading to where it always leads. Begging has always been their foreplay. Louis begs, and Harry folds, and they both break. Begging has always been their foreplay. Harry goes down, and Louis surges forward, and it’s always been leading to this. Through the tears, Harry reaches for Louis’ vest and pushes it up. Louis complies and lets his shirt be taken off, his joggers and pants shucked to cover his ankles. Harry stands up then, looks down at the boy underneath him.

            Once, when Louis was sex-drunk and spacey between rounds on the floor and in the garden, when lust and rage and desperation tastes like love and sweat and drops of come, Louis told Harry that he was most beautiful like this. Splayed out in tendrils, the fade between pillow and mane and face made rich by the brown of his curls and the rush of heat left upon his cheeks. Louis had said there was no one he’d rather see beneath him than Harry, and in this moment, Harry understands. Louis’ hair is far too long and scraggly. His eyes are sunken in, the purple of his skin bleeding into the blue and the green and the white and the gold. Harry can count the cracks in Louis’ lips, sees the skin sagging on his cheeks, the nicks and bits of blood from shaving whilst delirious. Harry can see that Louis is hideous and mean and terribly beautiful. Harry can see that Louis is beautiful and human and sacredly bruised. Harry can see that Louis is beautiful.

            Harry takes his time but none at all to remove his own clothes. He tosses his shirt and jeans on the chair, chucks his boots near Louis’ head. Louis doesn’t flinch. Harry walks to the tall table next to the couch and opens the hidden drawer. He finds a condom which he leaves and two small packets of lube he can use. On the floor, Louis’ breathing is stunted and unsure, like he knows what’s coming and maybe cares enough about Harry to let him do this. He nods when Harry crouches over him, tucks his knees to his chest when Harry starts with two fingers and moves to three. Louis is silent, and Harry remembers that Louis doesn’t like it this way. It isn’t the way they do this, it isn’t the way they love. He thrusts his fingers a few more times and doesn’t bother to see if Louis is ready. Louis is beautiful and that is enough. In the beauty, Harry begins.

            Louis grunts, and Harry pushes in. Harry wants it to be rough, wants to put one thousand, eight hundred and twenty five days’ worth of pain into this. He wants to hold Louis down and suffocate him. Harry is not a victim. Louis’ heat overwhelms him bit by bit until Harry bottoms out on the sitting room floor, and Louis is full.

            Harry tries to search Louis’ eyes, but finds them closed, hidden behind paper thin skin. His nose is scrunched and his cheeks still wet, and he’s heaving breathes too early into this, and if Harry knows Louis, he knows he will never be ready. So Harry moves.

            The slight drag feels real, feels precise. It grounds him to the moment, and Harry spares a thought for the fact that he is the only one who has ever done this. Louis’ knees are in Harry’s chest and he uses them as leverage to push in, push up. Harry drives in and pulls out until it’s almost too far, and drives in again. The room is silent save Louis’ incoherent babbling and Harry’s sobs.

It’s only after too many dirty, raw thrusts that Harry recognizes what Louis is saying. It’s a chant, one word over and over and over again. It makes Harry speed up. _Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t_ meaning _stop_ meaning _last time_ meaning _this hurts_ meaning _this hurts_ meaning _this hurts_. Begging was always their foreplay.

            “Don’t,” Louis manages, articulate and clear and full through wincing and panting and tears. Harry tries to stop, but he can’t. He’s too far in, too committed to the pain. Just a little bit, that’s all he asks. He doesn’t feel Louis’ hands grabbing his forearms, then his biceps. He doesn’t feel Louis moving his legs, pushing when Harry is pushing, pulling when Harry is pulling. He doesn’t feel it until the pop, until he slips out and Louis kicks him in the abdomen and rolls away heaving.

            “Don’t,” he says again.

            Harry moves away and sits up facing the chair that holds his shirt and jeans. He is still crying.

            It isn’t what he thought it would be. This isn’t what he thought he’d feel. _Last time, last time, last time?_

            “Does it hurt?” he asks.

            “No,” Louis says.

            “Good,” Harry says. He gets up and walks towards the bathroom, closing the door.

 

When Harry comes back, Louis is sitting up, joggers back on. He is on the couch, his knees drawn. Louis toys with the baby monitor Harry isn’t sure he’s seen before. He looks up, and Harry stands there naked and ashamed and hurt, which doesn’t make any sense. Except it does.

            “Why’d you stop me?” Harry asks.

            “Because it wasn’t fun anymore. Because you didn’t want to.”

            “I was there, wasn’t I?” Harry says.

            “Still,” Louis says, “I know you. You didn’t want to.” And isn’t that unfair, to be known.

            “I wanted to,” Harry says.

            “No. You just wanted to hurt me.”

            “Did I?” Harry asks again.

            “No. But you wanted to.” Harry crosses the room and sits on the opposite side of the couch. It’s only a moment before he is caged in. Louis moves behind him and places his legs alongside Harry’s, wraps his body like a promise, his face tucked between Harry’s shoulder blades. They breathe together.

            “It’s the same thing, hurting me and wanted to, innit?”

            “No matter what I’ve ever did, I never wanted to hurt you.”

            “But you did,” Harry says.

            “Do you want it to matter anymore?” Louis asks and Harry feels the words on his skin. It hurts again. Harry tries, but it isn’t moving, he isn’t breathing. He realizes when the tears hit Louis’ hands that he’s never stopped crying. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how not to feel this way. How not to be in love, how not to feel this human, with his arms wrapped ‘round his middle, with his life nestled right next to him. He doesn’t know what to do.

            “I want, I know, I –”

            “It’s okay, love,” Louis whispers into his back. But it isn’t enough.

            “I deserve, Harry tries again, but what? Harry doesn’t know what he deserves.

            “Breathe, love. Just breathe. Louis says, exaggerating his own breath until Harry can’t just feel it, but match it again. They breathe together for minutes, for hours, for years. Four years. Five. Harry wants to try again.

            “I—”

            “You deserve to be heard,” Louis says like it’s the beginning. Like it’s a start.

            “I deserve to be heard.”

            “You deserve to have a choice,” Louis says like it’s simple. Like it’s right.

            “I deserve a choice.”

            “You deserve to be loved,” Louis says, like it’s the answer, like it can heal.

            “I deserve to be loved.”

            “You deserve to be mine,” Louis says, like it’s the truth. Like it’s everything. Harry turns in his arms as much as he can, catches Louis’ eyes and holds him there.

            “No,” Harry says, “I deserve more than that.”

            “I deserve you.”

            Harry frees himself from Louis’ arms, from everything he’s ever known and stands up to walk away.

            “No, you really don’t Lou,” he says to his back, to who’s behind him.

            “No, I don’t. But I want you anyways.”

            It’s not the beginning but it could be a start. It’s the truth, and it can heal. It’s the answer, and it’s right. It’s simple. But Harry isn’t sure it’s enough. Harry climbs the stairs and into the shower.

 

 

            Harry wakes up to Louis and the baby in bed, tucked against the plush patterned headboard. Louis is asleep but Freddie’s eyes are open. Harry can see the blue of his eyes, the turn on his nose, the wisps of hair. Harry can see him all. Freddie shuffles and squiggles down into Louis’ arms and draws his miniscule eyebrows together in the way Louis does when he thinks big thoughts he doesn’t want to share. Harry knows that face. Harry knows everything about it. Freddie Long-May-He-Reign could be the love of Harry’s life, and yet, he’s the antithesis. In theory, Freddie stole every good and perfect dream from Harry. In truth, Freddie is a baby. In theory, Freddie changed everything and sealed a fate for Harry and Louis and HarryandLouis. In truth, he’s probably saved them from a lifetime between the devil and the deep blue sea. He is a new ship, and Harry looks him in his perfect blue eyes and knows he can love him. Knows that he probably already does. He picks the tiny babe up, careful not to wake his father, and shuffles into the bathroom. He sings the song that brought him Louis, and he changes the baby and blows raspberries on his tummy. He places Freddie back in bed and gives him enough room to be what saves them all. Harry stares and stares and stares.

            He’s interrupted by an incessant knocking at his front door, a muffled scream that doesn’t quite make sense. He looks at the clock that reads 5:28 A.M. and throws a pullover over his head, and he heads downstairs. The doorbell still rings, and the knocks grow louder and before Harry even opens the door, he knows it’s her.

            Freddie’s mother is manic, and it’s clear that she didn’t know where her child or his father have been. Louis’ been in house with the baby since last night’s sundown, and a child that young needs his mother. As the door swings open to reveal the girl in a dirty t-shirts and leggings that are torn, Harry thinks that mothers need their young children, too.

            “Is he here?” she says with no preamble, trying to peer around Harry’s shoulder.

            Harry nods his head and moves out of the way as the girl pushes into the house.

            “Louis!” she screams, tearing through the house, only stopping to grab the baby blanket from the coffee table in the sitting room. “Louis! Bring me my fucking son!”

            Louis comes down the stairs then, rubbing sleep from his eyes in only the joggers from last night, hair still dirty, still disheveled. It makes for a rumpled and uncoordinated mess. It makes, it seems, for Louis.

            Whereas the girl is twirling and churning the air around her, Louis is stale. He walks as slow as she is fast and looks thoroughly unimpressed to see the mother of his child. It’s a look he’s perfected over the years, mostly whilst looking at Harry, whilst looking straight through. It’s a look Harry knows too well. He moves towards the kitchen to prepare tea and to provide at least the semblance of privacy for the two young parents in the open house. He turns to catch her face one more time. She is unafraid.

            “What are you yelling for? Freddie is fucking asleep.” Louis says. He stretches and grabs the pullover from the couch to put on. Like always, he’s created a hurricane through turbulence in Harry’s home. Home.

            “Are you joking me?” the girl says.

            “Bri—”

            “You said you were going out to run an errand! Said you were running to the store! That was twenty hours ago.”

            It occurs to Harry then that he obviously wasn’t Louis’ first stop. He wonders if he was a planned one, if he was the plan all along.

            “I was going to come back,” Louis says.

            “When?” the girl replies. Louis just shrugs. The girl scoffs and turns to Harry, who is still standing near the kitchen.

            “Where is he?” she asks, and Harry points to the front staircase. She takes off, and he can hear her bounding through rooms, Freddie’s piercing cries when she finds him. He sounds like the shallow end of ache.

            She comes back down, and Harry sees that she’s left the nappy knapsack and a spare toy or two in the master bath. Harry silently slips away to fetch them, doesn’t look at Louis when he does. He tunes out the muffled fighting and the sound of Freddie’s tears by closing the bathroom door and figuring out how to breathe. This will always be a part of his life. It could. He shakes his head to clear it of any thoughts, and gathers the baby’s things and heads back downstairs.

            “—‘d you even find me?” Louis is saying as he enters, and Harry flinches a bit, falters. Still, he understands the meaning. This isn’t the place to find Louis. This isn’t an open secret or even one that’s ever been kept or kept up. No one knows where home is anymore. Harry places the bag near the front door and goes the long way to the kitchen. He finally decides to fix that cuppa, doesn’t know whether to add water for two or three.

            He can hear snippets of the fight and Louis shouting and Freddie crying, still crying; only, he doesn’t sound like the only one anymore. Harry abandons the tea and finds the two standing near the front door. When Harry reaches them, the mum has the baby carrier by her feet and her hand raised. He hears the smack before he sees Louis’ head turn, and if the gods have any mercy, Harry could close his eyes and unsee it. The truth is he probably deserves it. The truth maybe doesn’t matter here. Harry pulls at Louis’ arm before he can even open his mouth, shoves him towards the formal staircase in the front of the house.

            “Just go,” he says.

            “Fuck you,” Louis says pulling away and looking at the girl and his baby. He opens his mouth to speak, but makes a strangled sound. Louis tears up the stairs, and there’s a moment’s delay before a door is slammed. It is a sign of their relationships that the girl winces greatly and Harry does not. Not at all. Freddie continues to cry, and in Louis’ absence, the mother wilts. She sags into the wall and closer her eyes, tries to catch her breath and the tears as they fall towards her breasts. She opens her eyes and Harry steps closer, gestures down towards the sobbing baby.

            “Do you need help?” he asks.

            “Not from you.”

            “I’m the only one offering.”

            She bites out a laugh.

            “Isn’t that the fucking truth.”

            The girl excuses herself to the bathroom, and Harry scoops up Freddie. It takes a minute, maybe two, but the sobs turn to sniffles then turn to quiet completely. Harry finds the boy’s dummy clenched in his tiny fist, and he fishes it out and places it in his mouth. Freddie looks surprised and a bit miserable, and Harry is so in love with him, he thinks it must be visible from the spaces between. He rocks the baby a bit more and steals a kiss to remember him by. He isn’t foolish – he knows it might be a while until he sees the wee lad again, knows he won’t be invited to birthdays and barbecues, knows there will be no christenings. But he’s in love with the baby because that’s what parents do. They love. And Freddie Long-May-He-Reign Tomlinson might not be his child, but he is his dream personified. And Harry is tired of pretending otherwise. That’s the truth.

            As he places Freddie back into his car seat, the mum comes in the foyer. Her face is scrubbed clean of make-up and tears, and she looks lovely and exhausted, and Harry feels for her, he does. She looks from Harry to the baby, and picks the carrier up and holds it with both hands, losing every battle she’s ever faced.

            “What did he tell you?” she asks, “What did he say?”

            “Nothing, I swear.”

            The girl scoffs. “I know, what he thinks about me. I hear what people say and stuff. But I’m a good person? I am, and I didn’t – I liked him.” Harry nods and lets her continue. He knows what it is like to always know, always assume the worst about yourself from other people’s lips. The truth in the absence. In the absence of her anger, the lilts in her words returns, permanent questions. And Harry wonders if it’s intentional because she’s unsure or if it’s intentional because she has no idea what it is to live in this world with people like them and slammed doors and brokenness as the tenor behind the music of their lives.

            “And it’s hard? I mean, like, I knew, I assumed it was gonna be – because…well, he doesn’t like me very much anymore. And my family are pissed, and I have to – it’s just me? And I’m all alone? I just didn’t want to have to do it alone.”

            And Harry wants to say _I understand_ and _I’m sorry_ and _I know what it means when he doesn’t like you. I know what it means to feel alone_. But it occurs to him that this is something else entirely. Despite all his old hopes and his not forgotten dreams, he would’ve never experienced this. Their family wouldn’t have looked like this. Harry wouldn’t feel like this, like she does. So he doesn’t understand, but he knows how it feels to be alone.

            “I’m sorry,” he says.

            “It’s fine,” she answers, “I’ll be good.” _Good enough_.

            The two walk in silence out the door towards a car that is too small for this house and this family. Harry feels guilty and wonders if she’d accept him buying her an SUV. Precious cargo and all that.

            “If you want,” he says, “I can help you. I don’t mind.”

            “I thought you didn’t like me either,” the girl says.

            “No, I do, I don’t – I’m sorry” Harry says.

            “It’s okay,” she shrugs.

            “I just didn’t know you. But I should’ve been kinder. I apologize.” And the words seem formal and forced, but he means it, every word.

            “Why are you being nice to me?”

            “You’re a lovely girl,” Harry says.

            The mother stares at Harry for a second before a cautious smile spreads on her face. She is a lovely girl. She has to be to endure this. Harry opens the door for her, and she snaps the car seat in place. He loads the bags in the back as she opens her own door. She turns to him and tilts her head.

            “So it’s true then?” she asks. Meaning the rumors, meaning the lies, meaning the truth of the matter is that they loved each other once, love each other now.

            Harry shrugs. “Is that okay?”

            “If it’s not me, it should be you,” she says, turning around and climbing in the car. She starts the vehicle and rolls the window down.

            “I meant it, you know,” Harry says, “I want to help you, if you’d like. Just…you’re not alone is all.”

            The girl smiles again and backs up, turning towards the gate. She’s almost there when the car stops and the reverse lights come on. She backs up, and Harry walks to meet her.

            “You didn’t get a chance to say goodbye,” she says, “to Freddie.”

            Harry hears the doors unlock, and he waits for a second, for a chance this isn’t what it looks like. But the mum is tired, and she’s sad, and she’s extended a small olive branch, and all Harry wants is peace. He opens the backseat door and crawls halfway in, leaning over the sweet baby. Freddie is asleep, tired out from the crying and dramatics and from being a pawn in a terrible game. Harry kisses his cheek and puts his fingers up to the curled up toes that aren’t even the length of his time on earth. Harry loves him and tells him so. She hears; he knows she does, but she makes no sound.

            Harry climbs out and shuts the door softly and nods his head in thanks.

            “Make him pick us,” she says, and she pulls away.

            _Us_ meaning _you and me_.

 

Inside, Harry takes a deep breath and shakes his hair out. He feels a bit disgusting and doesn’t know what happens next. He goes to his room and is unsurprised to see Louis lying there, on the bed. His back is to the door and to Harry, and there are a million things that could be said in this moment. Oops.

            “I thought you said they knew you had him?”

            “I lied.”

            “Thought you were only telling the truth,” Harry says and Louis turns over and the pain is clear and obvious. And it’s all too loud and too clumsy and too Louis for this space.

            “Why didn’t they call you?” Harry asks.

            “Turned off me phone,” Louis says, and Harry notes that he hasn’t seen or heard his own phone in a while either.

            “You shouldn’t have done that,” he says.

            “I just needed to see you.”

            “Doesn’t constitute kidnapping, mate.”

            “Thought,” Louis says, finally, finally, finally sitting up, “Thought it might make things easier.”

            And it hadn’t. Freddie made things hard at first and then simple in the end. Reminded Harry that this isn’t about the two of them anymore, it isn’t just their lives at stake. They’ve watched their world burn and held the matches in their hands far too many times to count, holding desperately to the notion that there’s _one more_ and _one more_ and _one more_ again. That their ashes would burn and turn into another phoenix; that they could always start over, no matter how many times they said they were done. But they can’t do that anymore. It isn’t their lives to ruin. It isn’t their lives to share.

            “You love him, don’t you?” Louis asks, pulling Harry from his thoughts. _Him_ meaning _My son_ meaning _My baby_ meaning _Me_.

            “He’s the best thing you’ve ever done.”

            “Best part of me, his is.”

            “Yeah,” Harry agrees. _The best and the good and all you could ever do_.

            “So there’s nothing left?” _Nothing left worth loving, nothing else good, nothing else here? Nothing here? Nothing with me? Nothing? No thing at all?_

            “I haven’t right decided,” Harry says, shirking the shirt he pulled on when the girl came over. “I’m going to shower.”

            “Is that an invitation?” Louis asks, and it isn’t heated. It isn’t hopeful.

            “Figure we know how to have sex, Lou; doesn’t mean we always have to.”

            Louis stands and crosses the room, stands toe to toe with Harry.

            “If we never have sex again,” Louis says, “I wouldn’t care.”

            Harry wants to let him know it was a joke. Harry wants to know what that even means. Instead he takes one, two, four steps back and turns around. He walks into the bathroom and closes the door behind it. He spends his shower hoping the door will open, silently happy it remains shut.

 

He finds Louis downstairs. He’s in the sitting room again, with a cup of tea and football playing silent on the telly. His phone is in front of him, and Harry hopes it’s on, hopes that he will be forgiven for all he’s done. It’s what today and yesterday were for. And surely that should be worth something.

            “Hungry?” he calls to the lad, moving towards the kitchen.

            “Ordered from that Indian place down the hill,” Louis says, his eyes never leaving the television screen. Harry grabs a beer and finds a spot next to Louis but not near enough him. He watches the screen silently. It’s an old rerun, Pele running across the screen, the cheers muted. It seems like all of the big moments in life require cheers, though sometimes they’re off-screen. Harry looks over and catches Louis staring at him. Up close, he sees that Louis’ hair is damp, recognizes an old jersey from the back of his closet and a shared pair of joggers Harry’d mostly forgotten about.

            “Where’d you shower?” Harry asks.

            “Me old room,” Louis answers. “Forgot about the knob not working. Nearly scalded me bits off.”

            “I always forget to get it fixed.”

            “Not worth the trouble, really,” Louis says. He leans over and grabs his tea, looking back up at the advert break.

            “How long have you been gone?” Harry blurts out. He knows better, he does. He learned this lesson and knows it’s better to just hide and assume. But they’ll sit here forever ignoring the everything and moving on unresolved if he doesn’t. He learned that lesson too. _How long have you been gone? From her? From him? For me._

            “A bit,” Louis says. His eyes do not leave the screen.

            “Where’d you go first?”

            “Nowhere.”

            “Who’d you see?”

            “No one.” _Her. Because I’m supposed to_.

            “Thought you weren’t going to lie.”

            “What do you want me to say, Harry?” Louis says turning his body fully, looking Harry up and down. “Yes, I went to see my girlfriend. And I told her everything I’m supposed to and she believed me. And it made me right sick. So I drove around for four hours until me petrol ran empty. I sat in a car park for a couple more with Freddie and told him all about you. I spoke with me mum and did the same.”

            “You talked to Jay?”

            “Figured it was time with her as well,” Louis says, sipping his tea.

            “What’d you say?”

            “What does it matter?” Louis says.

            “You tell her you were coming here?”

            “Told her I missed you.”

            “Yeah? What’d she say?” Harry asks.

            “Nothing,” Louis looks away.

            “Does your mum like her?” _Her_ meaning _the girlfriend_ meaning _the new girlfriend_ meaning _I’ve got a girlfriend_ and _this is hard_ meaning _this is the same_ meaning _it isn’t, not really, not at all_. Harry doesn’t even remember the new girl’s name.

            “Aye,” Louis says, “Likes her more than Bri, less than El.”

            “That was honest,” Harry says.

            “Told you I wasn’t gonna lie to you anymore.”

            And maybe that isn’t true since his presence here is a lie. But he’s trying. He’s not the villain. Harry’s not the victim. Louis’ phone buzzes, and he reaches over and checks the screen. His face is blank when he turns back.

            “Who is it?” Harry asks.

            “No one,” Louis says.

            “You shouldn’t call her ‘no one,’ mate.”

            “Weren’t you the one,” Louis says, “that said there’d always been some bird around? Weren’t it you?”

            And all Harry can do is nod because it was his truth to bring up. Louis sighs and puts his tea cup on the ground. He places one hand on Harry’s leg, the other thrown over the back of the couch to gesture with.

            “I’m never gonna be that guy, Haz. I’m not gonna be okay with…that-that or summat. I’m just not. I’m not gonna suddenly be okay with everything I wasn’t okay with before. Known me o’er five years now, love – surely you know that.”

            “I’m not asking for that, Lou. I’m not. Life isn’t – our life isn’t –”

            “And I’ve got Freddie now, mate, so I have to – I’m looking out for him now too.” Their voices are raised, and it’s almost like shouting or begging or love.

            “So then why are you here, Louis?”

            “Because I’ll probably love you for the rest of me life, sick fuck that I am.”

            Harry doesn’t cry. Because he doesn’t, that’s why.

            “That isn’t what I’m asking you,” he says.

            “Then what, Harry? Tell me what—”

            “Am I supposed to just live the rest of my life waiting behind the curtains for you?”

            “What?” Louis says, leaning back.

            “When – when you’re with her. Or you’re married and have kids – more kids…what am I supposed to do when you’re happy?”

            Louis pauses. Louis looks up at the lacquered ceiling, and Harry watches the lines of the lad’s throat move like the lines on the lad’s face, and he knows, Harry knows he’s lost. This is what they can only see in the light.

            “You’re supposed to be happy too,” Louis says.

            And Harry knows this. Knows that this is the obvious solution, to be happy without Louis in the way Louis can be happy without Harry. Harry knows. But

            “How?”

            Louis sighs.

            “Don’t know. Haven’t figured it out meself. Play happy, stay miserable.”

            “I don’t want to be miserable.”

            “I don’t want to have to miss you.”

            “Then don’t,” Harry whispers.

            “I always do,” Louis says.

            Harry listens to his heartbeat and knows that it matches Louis’ own.

            “So where does that leave us?” Louis braves.

            “You want me to wait for you forever and to never be with me.”

            “No,” Louis says.

            “Yes,” says Harry. “You want to live a whole life without me.”

            “No,” Louis says. “ _No._ ”

            “Then –”

            “You can live too, yeah?” It’s just no matter what, we’ll always be home,” Louis says.

            “What does that even mean anymore, Louis?”

            “It means I love you, and you love me, and we know that.”

            “You don’t,” Harry says.

            “I do.”

            “I don’t,” Harry says

            “You do. You couldn’t love me if I was different. And I love you.”

            “No,” Harry says.

            “It’s the only thing I really know.”

            “But how –”

            “This is all I’ve got left, Haz,” Louis says, and it’s desperate and it’s true.

 

Harry looks at Louis and can see it. He can see this life with Louis. A forever filled with other people and other places built on the foundation of the two of them. Built on home. In the way that every person he has ever met has known, he knows in this moment and this minute that he will always be the love of Louis William Tomlinson’s life. That’s the truth of it.

 

In a day and night and years of truths, in a life of them, the truest things Louis ever said are these:

 

Harry loves Louis.

            This is the current. This is what can never be denied. Harry hides it, Harry tortures himself and others. Harry runs and Harry runs and Harry falls and he cries and he dies a little every time he tries to convince himself otherwise.

 

Harry loves Louis.

Louis loves Harry.

            It’s not measured the same, this love. Because if Louis loves him the way he’s always said, the way he says now, then how could he always break his heart? How could Louis break him and bury him over and over and over again? How could he?

 

Harry loves Louis.

Louis loves Harry.

Louis is broken.

            The answer is that love doesn’t fix broken. The answer is that Louis will always be broken. He will never not be broken. The answer is that Louis is afraid and was afraid and his fear is violent in the way Harry’s is desperate.

 

Harry loves Louis.

Louis loves Harry.

Louis is broken.

He loves Harry anyways.

            If Louis were different, if Harry was different, there would be no way for them to survive. They can’t be together because it’s hard. They can’t be apart because it’s harder.

 

Harry loves Louis.

Louis loves Harry.

Louis is broken.

Harry loves him anyways.

            The answer is the truth, and the truth is that there is no answer, there never was an answer, never will be one. It will never not be hard. It will never not be worth it. Harry loves Louis and Louis loves Harry. There isn’t anything else anymore.

 

Harry nods and Louis wipes his eyes. The two sit on the couch and maybe they hold each other and maybe they watch footie. And when the food comes, it is Harry who is lost a bit in his own home, can’t find his wallet, can’t find his key code for the gate. So Louis will pay, and Louis will get plates, and Louis will spill brown spicy sauce on Harry’s suede couch. And later, before Louis has to leave, before he has to resume living in the present of others’ expectations, he will lie underneath Harry because they met once and fell in love and fell apart but that wasn’t the end of their story. And Harry will not cry and Harry will not hold back. He will kiss the boy from the stairs, and it will be hope and fight and the win. Harry will rock in and in again and Louis will cry out and scratch and moan _Home_ against Harry’s sheets. Harry will take Louis’ hands and hold them in his own, a perfect fit and sixteen and eighteen and twenty-two and twenty-four. He will leave new versions of permanent and perfect marks upon the lad’s skin, bruises on his thighs and his soul. He’ll trace new trails with his tongue on the body he claimed long and long and long ago. Harry will love Louis and Louis will love Harry. The two will come and come together and isn’t this the beginning though it feels like the end. Isn’t it everything. Harry will look at Louis and know _There will never be a love as great as ours._

 

And for now that’s enough. Forever that’s enough.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To you:
> 
> I began this work 15 July 2015, the day after the announcement that Louis Tomlinson would be a father. And like many, if not all of you, I was...I was broken. And sad. And angry. And many things, ugly things that perhaps I haven't yet come to terms with. So I began to write, and here many months later, it's done. For now.
> 
> The truth is that there were once two boys who fell in love and fell apart. This much is true, I promise you.  
> The truth is that life and love are often at odds, and roads don't always lead where we'd like, even when the destination is worthwhile.  
> The truth is that the end is yet to come. And no amount of hate or hurt or hers will deny or defy or detract from the truth, the real truth. That once, two boys fell in love and were in love and are in love and will be again and again and forever.
> 
> Thank you for letting me share this blossom of a truth with you. I hadn't written a word in three years before this, too tired and scarred from other pages of my own story. It was worth it to return to tell you this.
> 
> I hope this helps you or heals you. I hope it makes you see things differently. I hope it makes you put down the sword and pick up the soft and sure promise once shared for the world to see. *Always in my heart.*
> 
> Always. All the love. x


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